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The  Library 
University  of  California,  Los  Angeles 


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Special  Series  No.   3 


THE    TALMUD 


BY 


EMANUEL  DEUTSCH 


PHILADELPHIA 


The  Jewish  Publication  Society  of  America 
1S95 


Reprinted  from 

'  Literary  Remains  of  the  Late  Emanuel  Deutsch, 

London,  1S74. 


PRESS  OF 

EDWARD  STERN    &   CO.,   INC., 

PHILADELPHIA. 


on 


THE  TALMUD' 

What  is  the  Talmud  ? 

What  is  the  nature  of  that  strange  production  of 
which  the  name,  imperceptibly  almost,  is  beginning 
to  take  its  place  among  the  household  words  of 
Europe  ?  Turn  where  we  may  in  the  realms  of 
modern  learning,  we  seem  to  be  haunted  by  it.  We 
meet  with  it  in  theology,  in  science,  even  in  gen- 
eral literature,  in  their  highways  and  in  their  by- 
ways. There  is  not  a  handbook  to  all  or  any  of  the 
many  departments  of  biblical  lore,  sacred  geogra- 
phy, history,  chronology,  numismatics,  and  the  rest, 
but  its  pages  contain  references  to  the  Talmud. 
The  advocates  of  all  religious  opinions  appeal  to 
its  dicta.  Nay,  not  only  the  scientific  investiga- 
tors of  Judaism  and  Christianity,  but  those  of 
Mohammedanism  and  Zoroastrianism,  turn  to  it  in 
their  dissections  of  dogma  and  legend  and  cere- 
mony. If,  again,  we  take  up  any  recent  volume  of 
archaeological  or  philological  transactions,  whether 
we  light  on  a  dissertation  on  a  Phoenician  altar,  or 
a  cuneiform  tablet,  Babylonian  weights,  or  Sas- 
sanian  coins,  we  are  certain  to  find  this  mysterious 
word.  Nor  is  it  merely  the  restorers  of  the  lost 
idioms  of  Canaan  and  Assyria,  of  Himyarand  Zoro- 
astrian  Persia,  that  appeal  to  the  Talmud  for  assis- 

^  This  article  appeared  in  the  (2uarterly  Rcoieiv  for  Octo- 
ber, 1867,  vol.  cxxiii.,  No.  z^fi. 


916 


4  THE    TALMUD 

tance  ;  but  the  modern  schools  of  Greek  and  Latin 
philology  are  beginning  to  avail  themselves  of  the 
classical  and  post-classical  materials  that  lie  scat- 
tered through  it.  Jurisprudence,  in  its  turn,  has 
been  roused  to  the  fact  that,  apart  from  the  bear- 
ing of  the  Talmud  on  the  study  of  the  Pandects 
and  the  Institutes,  there  are  also  some  of  those 
very  laws  of  the  Medes  and  Persians — hitherto  but 
a  vague  sound — hidde-n  away  in  its  labyrinths. 
And  so  too  with  medicine,  astronomy,  mathe- 
matics, and  the  rest.  The  history  of  these  sciences, 
during  that  period  over  which  the  composition  of 
the  Talmud  ranges — and  it  ranges  over  about  a 
thousand  years — can  no  longer  be  written  without 
some  reference  to  the  items  preserved,  as  in  a  vast 
buried  city,  in  this  cyclopean  work.  Yet,  apart 
from  the  facts  that  belong  emphatically  to  these 
respective  branches,  it  contains  other  facts,  of 
larger  moment  still :  facts  bearing  upon  human  cul- 
ture in  its  widest  sense.  Day  by  day  there  are 
excavated  from  these  mounds  pictures  of  many 
countries  and  many  periods.  Pictures  of  Hellas 
and  Byzantium,  Egypt  and  Rome,  Persia  and  Pales- 
tine ;  of  the  temple  and  the  forum,  war  and  peace, 
joy  and  mourning ;  pictures  teeming  with  life,  glow- 
ing with  color. 

These  are,  indeed,  signs  of  the  times.  A  mighty 
change  has  come  over  us.  We,  children  of  this 
latter  age,  are,  above  all  things,  utilitarian.  We  do 
not  read  the  Koran,  the  Zend-Avesta,  the  Vedas, 
with  the  sole  view  of  refuting  them.  We  look  upon 
all  literature,  religious,  legal,  and  otherwise,  when- 


THE    TALMUD 


soever  and  wheresoever  produced,  as  part  and  par- 
cel of  humanity.  We,  in  a  manner,  feel  a  kind  of 
responsibility  for  it.  We  seek  to  understand  the 
phase  of  culture  which  begot  these  items  of  our 
inheritance,  the  spirit  that  moves  upon  their  face. 
And  while  we  bury  that  which  is  dead  in  them,  we 
rejoice  in  that  which  lives  in  them.  We  enrich  our 
stores  of  knowledge  from  theirs,  we  are  stirred  by 
their  poetry,  we  are  moved  to  high  and  holy 
thoughts  when  they  touch  the  divine  chord  in  our 
hearts. 

In  the  same  human  spirit  we  now  speak  of  the 
Talmud.  There  is  even  danger  at  hand  that  this 
chivalresque  feeling — one  of  the  most  touching 
characteristics  of  our  times — which  is  evermore 
prompting  us  to  offer  holocausts  to  the  Manes  of 
those  whom  former  generations  are  thought  to  have 
wronged,  may  lead  to  its  being  extolled  somewhat 
beyond  its  merit..  As  these  ever  new  testimonies 
to  its  value  crowd  upon  us,  we  might  be  led  into 
exaggerating  its  importance  for  the  history  of  man- 
kind. Yet  an  old  adage  of  its  own  says  :  "Above 
all  things,  study.  Whether  for  the  sake  of  learn- 
ing or  for  any  other  reason,  study.  For,  whatever 
the  motives  that  impel  you  at  first,  you  will  very 
soon  love  study  for  its  own  sake."  And  thus  even 
exaggerated  expectations  of  the  treasure-trove  in 
the  Talmud  will  have  their  value,  if  they  lead  to  the 
study  of  the  work  itself. 

For,  let  us  say  it  at  once,  these  tokens  of  its  ex- 
istence, that  appear  in  many  a  new  publication,  are, 
for  the  most  part,  but  will-o'-the-wisps.     At  first 


6  THE    TALMUD 

sight  one  would  fancy  that  there  never  was  a  book 
more  popular,  or  that  formed  more  exclusively  the 
mental  centre  of  modern  scholars,  Orientalists, 
theologians,  or  jurists.  What  is  the  real  truth? 
Paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  there  never  was  a  book 
at  once  more  universally  neglected  and  more  uni- 
versally talked  of.  Well  may  we  forgive  Heine, 
when  we  read  the  glowing  description  of  the 
Talmud  contained  in  his  "  Romancero,"  for  never 
having  even  seen  the  subject  of  his  panegyrics. 
Like  his  countryman  Schiller,  who,  pining  vainly  for 
one  glimpse  of  the  Alps,  produced  the  most  glowing 
and  faithful  picture  of  them,  so  he,  with  the  poet's 
unerring  instinct,  gathered  truth  from  hearsay  and 
description.  But  how  many  of  these  ubiquitous 
learned  quotations  really  flow  from  the  fountain- 
head.-'  Too  often  and  too  palpably  it  is  merely — 
to  use  Samson's  agricultural  simile — those  ancient 
and  well-worked  heifers,  the  "Tela  ignea  Satanae," 
the  "Abgezogener  Schlangenbalg,"  and  all  their 
venomous  kindred,  which  are  once  more  being 
dragged  to  the  plough  by  some  of  the  learned. 
We  say  the  learned :  for  as  to  the  people  at  large, 
often  as  they  hear  the  word  now,  we  firmly  believe 
that  numbers  of  them  still  hold,  with  that  erudite 
Capucin  friar,  Henricus  Seynensis,  that  the  Tal- 
mud is  not  a  book,  but  a  man.  "Ut  narrat  Rab- 
binus  Talmud" — "As  says  Rabbi  Talmud  " — cries 
he,  and  triumphantly  clinches  his  argument ! 

And  of  those  who  know  that  it  is  not  a  Rabbi, 
how  many  are  there  to  whom  it  conveys  any  but 
the  vaguest  of  notions  1     Who  wrote  it }     What  is 


THE    TALMUD  7 

its  bulk  ?  Its  date  ?  Its  contents  ?  Its  birthplace  ? 
A  contemporary  lately  called  it  "  a  sphinx,  towards 
which  all  men's  eyes  are  directed  at  this  hour,  some 
with  eager  curiosity,  some  with  vague  anxiety." 
But  why  not  force  open  its  lips  ?  How  much  longer 
are  we  to  live  by  quotations  alone,  quotations  a 
thousand  times  used,  a  thousand  times  abused? 

Where,  however,  are  we  to  look  even  for  primary 
instruction  ?  Where  learn  the  story  of  the  book, 
its  place  in  literature,  its  meaning  and  purport, 
and,  above  all,  its  relation  to  ourselves  ? 

If  we  turn  to  the  time-honored  "Authorities," 
we  shall  mostly  find  that,  in  their  eagerness  to 
serve  some  cause,  they  have  torn  a  few  pieces  off 
that  gigantic  living  body  ;  and  they  have  presented 
to  us  these  ghastly  anatomical  preparations,  twisted 
and  mutilated  out  of  all  shape  and  semblance,  say- 
ing, Behold,  this  is  the  book !  Or  they  have  done 
worse.  They  have  not  garbled  their  samples,  but 
have  given  them  exactly  as  they  found  them  ;  and 
then  stood  aside,  pointing  at  them  with  jeering 
countenance.  For  their  samples  were  ludicrous 
and  grotesque  beyond  expression.  But  these  wise 
and  pious  investigators  unfortunately  mistook  the 
gargoyles,  those  grinning  stone  caricatures  that 
mount  their  thousand  years'  guard  over  our  cathe- 
drals, for  the  gleaming  statues  of  the  Saints  with- 
in ;  and,  holding  them  up  to  mockery  and  derision, 
they  cried,  These  be  thy  gods,  O  Israel ! 

Let  us  not  be  misunderstood.  When  we  com- 
plain of  the  lack  of  guides  to  the  Talmud,  we  do 
not  wish  to  be  ungrateful  to  those  gfreat  and  earn- 


8  THE    TALMUD 

est  scholars  whose  names  are  familiar  to  every 
student,  and  whose  labors  have  been  ever  present 
to  our  mind.  For,  though  in  the  whole  realm  of 
learning  there  is  scarcely  a  single  branch  of  study 
to  be  compared  for  its  difficulty  to  the  Talmud, 
yet,  if  a  man  had  time,  and  patience,  and  knowl- 
'edge,  there  is  absolutely  no  reason  why  he  should 
not,  up  and  down  ancient  and  modern  libraries, 
gather  most  excellent  hints  from  essays  and 
treatises,  monographs  and  sketches,  in  books  and 
periodicals  without  number,  by  dint  of  which,  aided 
by  the  study  of  the  work  itself,  he  might  arrive  at 
some  conclusion  as  to  its  essence  and  tendencies, 
its  origin  and  its  development.  Yet,  so  far  as  we 
know,  that  work,  every  step  of  which,  it  must  be 
confessed,  is  beset  with  fatal  pitfalls,  has  not  yet 
been  done  for  the  world  at  large.  It  is  for  a  very 
good  reason  that  we  have  placed  nothing  but  the 
name  of  the  Talmud  itself  at  the  head  of  our 
paper.  We  have  sought  far  and  near  for  some  one 
special  book  on  the  subject,  which  we  might  make 
the  theme  of  our  observations — a  book  which 
should  not  merely  be  a  garbled  translation  of  a 
certain  twelfth  century  "  Introduction,"  inter- 
spersed with  vituperations  and  supplemented  with 
blunders,  but  which  from  the  platform  of  modern 
culture  should  pronounce  impartially  upon  a  pro- 
duction which,  if  for  no  other  reason,  claims  re- 
spect through  its  age, — a  book  that  would  lead  us 
through  the  stupendous  labyrinths  of  fact,  and 
thought,  and  fancy,  of  which  the  Talmud  consists, 
that  would  rejoice  even  in  hieroglyphical  fairy-lore, 


THE    TALMUD  9 

in  abstruse  propositions  and  syllogisms,  that  could 
forgive  wild  outbursts  of  passion,  and  not  judge 
harshly  and  hastily  of  things,  the  real  meaning  of 
which  may  have  had  to  be  hidden  under  the  fool's 
cap  and  bells. 

We  have  not  found  such  a  book,  nor  anything  ap- 
proaching to  it.  But  closely  connected  with  that 
circumstance  is  this  other,  that  we  were  fain  to  quote 
the  first  editions  of  this  Talmud,  though  scores 
have  been  printed  since,  and  about  a  dozen  are  in 
the  press  at  this  very  moment.  Even  this  first 
edition  was  printed  in  hot  haste,  and  without  due 
care ;  and  every  succeeding  one,  with  one  or  two 
insignificant  exceptions,  presents  a  sadder  spectacle. 
In  the  Basle  edition  of  1578 — the  third  in  point  of 
time,  which  has  remained  the  standard  edition 
almost  ever  since — that  amazing  creature,  the  Cen- 
sor, stepped  in.  In  his  anxiety  to  protect  the 
"  Faith  "  from  all  and  every  danger — for  the  Talmud 
was  supposed  to  hide  bitter  things  against  Christian- 
ity under  the  most  innocent-looking  words  and 
phrases — this  official  did  very  wonderful  things. 
When  he,  for  example,  found  some  ancient  Roman 
in  the  book  swearing  by  the  Capitol  or  by  Jupiter 
"of  Rome,"  his  mind  instantly  misgave  him.  Surely 
this  Roman  must  be  a  Christian,  the  Capitol  the 
Vatican,  Jupiter  the  Pope.  And  forthwith  he  struck 
out  Rome  and  substituted  any  other  place  he  could 
think  of.  A  favorite  spot  seems  to  have  been 
Persia,  sometimes  it  was  Aram  or  Babel.  So  that 
this  worthy  Roman  may  be  found  unto  this  day 
swearing  by  the  Capitol  of  Persia  or  by  the  Jupiter 


10  THE    TALMUD 

of  Aram  and  Babel.  But  whenever  the  word 
"Gentile  "  occurred,  the  Censor  was  seized  with  the 
most  frantic  terrors.  A  "  Gentile  "  could  not  possi- 
bly be  aught  but  a  Christian ;  whether  he  lived  in 
India  or  in  Athens,  in  Rome  or  in  Canaan  ;  whether 
he  was  a  good  Gentile — and  there  are  many  such  in 
the  Talmud — or  a  wicked  one.  Instantly  he  christ- 
ened him  ;  and  christened  him,  as  fancy  moved 
him,  an  "Egyptian,"  an  "Aramaean,"  an  "Amale- 
kite,"  an  "Arab,"  a  "Negro;"  sometimes  a  whole 
"people."  We  are  speaking  strictly  to  the  letter. 
All  this  is  extant  in  our  very  last  editions. 

Once  or  twice  attempts  were  made  to  clear  the 
text  from  its  foulest  blemishes.  There  was  even, 
about  two  years  ago,  a  beginning  made  of  a  "  criti- 
cal "  edition,  such  as  not  merely  Greek  and  Roman, 
Sanscrit  and  Persian  classics,  but  the  veriest  trash 
written  in  those  languages  would  have  had  ever 
so  long  ago.  And  there  is — M.  Renan's  unfortunate 
remark  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding' — no  lack 
of  Talmudical  MSS.,  however  fragmentary  they  be 
for  the  most  part.  There  are  innumerable  varia- 
tions, additions,  and  corrections  to  be  gleaned  from 
the  Codices  at  the  Bodleian  and  the  Vatican,  in  the 
Libraries  of  Odessa,  Munich,  and  Florence,  Ham- 
burg and  Heidelberg,  Paris  and  Parma.  But  an 
evil  eye  seems  to  be  upon  this  book.  This  cor- 
rected edition  remains  a  torso,  like  the  two  first 
volumes  of  translations  of  the  Talmud,  commenced 
at  different  periods,  the  second  volumes  of  which 

^  '•  On  sait  qu'il  ne  reste  aucun  manuscrit  du  Talmud  pour 
controler  les  editions  imprimees." — Les  Apdtres,  p.  262. 


THE    TALMUD  II 

never  saw  the  light.  It  therefore  seemed  advisable 
to  refer  to  the  Editio  Princeps,  as  the  one  that  is 
at  least  free  from  the  blemishes,  censorial  or  typo- 
graphical, of  later  ages. 

Well  does  the  Talmud  supplement  the  Horatian 
"  Habent  sua  fata  libelli,"  by  the  words  "  even  the 
sacred  scrolls  in  the  Tabernacle."  We  really  do 
not  wonder  that  the  good  Capucin  of  whom  we 
spoke  mistook  it  for  a  man.  Ever  since  it  existed — 
almost  before  it  existed  in  a  palpable  shape — it  has 
been  treated  much  like  a  human  being.  It  has  been 
proscribed,  and  imprisoned,  and  burnt,  a  hundred 
times  over.  From  Justinian,  who,  as  early  as  553 
A.D.,  honored  it  by  a  special  interdictory  Novella,^ 
down  to  Clement  VIII.  and  later — a  space  of  over 
a  thousand  years — both  the  secular  and  the  spiritual 
powers,  kings  and  emperors,  popes  and  anti-popes, 
vied  with  each  other  in  hurling  anathemas  and  bulls 
and  edicts  of  wholesale  confiscation  and  conflagra- 
tion against  this  luckless  book.  Thus,  within  a 
period  of  less  than  fifty  years — and  these  forming 
the  latter  half  of  the  sixteenth  century — it  was 
publicly  burnt  no  less  than  six  different  times,  and 
that  not  in  single  copies,  but  wholesale,  by  the 
wagon-load.  Julius  III.  issued  his  proclamation 
against  what  he  grotesquely  calls  the  "  Gemaroth 
Thalmud,"  in  1553  and  1555,  Paul  IV.  in  1559,  Pius 
V.  in  1566,  Clement  VIII.  in  1592  and  1599.  The 
fear  of  it  was  great  indeed.  Even  Pius  IV.,  in  giv- 
ing permission  for  a  new  edition,  stipulated  expressly 

1  Novella  146,  Us.p\  'E^paiwv  (addressed  to  the  Prsefectus 
Praetorio  Areobindus). 


12  THE    TALMUD 

that  it  should  appear  without  the  name  Talmud. 
"  Si  tamen  prodierit  sine  nomine  Thalmud  tolerari 
deberet."  It  almost  seems  to  have  been  a  kind  of 
Shibboleth,  by  which  every  new  potentate  had  to 
prove  the  rigor  of  his  faith.  And  very  rigorous  it 
must  have  been,  to  judge  by  the  language  which 
even  the  highest  dignitaries  of  the  Church  did  not 
disdain  to  use  at  times.  Thus  Honorius  IV.  writes 
to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  in  1286  anent  that 
"damnable  book"  {liber  davuiabilis),  admonishing 
him  gravely  and  desiring  him  "vehemently"  to  see 
that  it  be  not  read  by  anybody,  since  "  all  other  evils 
flow  out  of  it." — Verily  these  documents  are  sad 
reading,  only  relieved  occasionally  by  some  wild 
blunder  that  lights  up  as  with  one  flash  the  abyss 
of  ignorance  regarding  this  object  of  wrath. 

We  remember  but  one  sensible  exception  in  this 
Babel  of  manifestoes.  Clement  V.,  in  1307,  before 
condemning  the  book,  wished  to  know  something 
of  it,  and  there  was  no  one  to  tell  him.  Whereupon 
he  proposed — but  in  language  so  obscure  that  it  left 
the  door  open  for  many  interpretations — that  three 
chairs  be  founded,  for  Hebrew,  Chaldee,  and  Arabic, 
as  the  three  tongues  nearest  to  the  idiom  of  the 
Talmud.  The  spots  chosen  by  him  were  the  Uni- 
versities of  Paris,  Salamanca,  Bologna,  and  Oxford. 
In  time,  he  hoped,  one  of  these  Universities  might 
be  able  to  produce  a  translation  of  this  mysterious 
book.  Need  we  say  that  this  consummation  never 
came  to  pass .''  The  more  expeditious  process  of 
destruction  was  resorted  to  again  and  again  and 
again,  not  merely  in  the  single  cities  of  Italy  and 


THE    TALMUD  13 

France,  but    throughout  the  entire    Holy  Roman 
Empire. 

At  length  a  change  took  place  in  Germany. 
One  Pfefferkorn,  a  miserable  creature  enough,  be- 
gan, in  the  time  of  the  Emperor  Maximilian,  to 
agitate  for  a  new  decree  for  the  extermination  of 
the  Talmud.  The  Emperor  lay  with  his  hosts  be- 
fore Pavia,  when  the  evil-tongued  messenger  arrived 
in  the  camp,  furnished  with  goodly  letters  by 
Kunigunde,  the  Emperor's  beautiful  sister.  Maxi- 
milian, wearied  and  unsuspecting,  renewed  that 
time-honored  decree  for  a  confiscation,  to  be  duly 
followed  by  a  conflagration,  readily  enough.  The 
confiscation  was  conscientiously  carried  out,  for 
Pfefferkorn  knew  well  enough  where  his  former 
coreligionists  kept  their  books.  But  a  conflagra- 
tion of  a  very  different  kind  ensued.  Step  by  step, 
hour  by  hour,  the  German  Reformation  was  draw- 
ing nearer.  Reuchlin,  the  most  eminent  Hellenist 
and  Hebraist  of  his  time,  had  been  nominated  to 
sit  on  the  Committee  which  was  to  lend  its  learned 
authority  to  the  Emperor's  decree.  But  he  did  not 
relish  this  task.  "  He  did  not  like  the  look  of 
Pfefferkorn,"  he  says.  Besides  which,  he  was  a 
learned  and  an  honest  man,  and,  having  been  the 
restorer  of  classical  Greek  in  Germany,  he  did  not 
care  to  participate  in  the  wholesale  murder  of  a  book 
"written  by  Christ's  nearest  relations."  Perhaps  he 
saw  the  cunningly-laid  trap.  He  had  long  been  a 
thorn  in  the  flesh  of  many  of  his  contemporaries. 
His  Hebrew  labors  had  been  looked  upon  with 
bitter  jealousy,  if  not  fear.     Nothing  less  was  con- 


14  THE    TALMUD 

templated  in  those  days — the  theological  Faculty 
of  Mayence  demanded  it  openly — than  a  total 
"  Revision  and  Correction  "  of  the  Hebrew  Bible, 
"inasmuch  as  it  differed  from  the  Vulgate." 
Reuchlin,  on  his  part,  never  lost  an  opportunity  of 
proclaiming  the  high  importance  of  the  "  Hebrew 
Truth,"  as  he  emphatically  called  it.  His  enemies 
thought  that  one  of  two  things  would  follow.  By 
officially  pronouncing  upon  the  Talmud,  he  was 
sure  either  to  commit  himself  dangerously — and 
then  a  speedy  end  would  be  made  of  him — or  to 
set  at  naught,  to  a  certain  extent,  his  own  previous 
judgments  in  favor  of  these  studies.  He  declined 
the  proposal,  saying,  honestly  enough,  that  he  knew 
nothing  of  the  book,  and  that  he  was  not  aware 
of  the  existence  of  many  who  knew  anything  of  it. 
Least  of  all  did  its  detractors  know  it.  But,  he 
continued,  even  if  it  should  contain  attacks  on 
Christianity,  would  it  not  be  preferable  to  reply  to 
them  ."*  "  Burning  is  but  a  ruffianly  argument 
{Bacchanten-Argumejtt)."  Whereupon  a  wild  out- 
cry was  raised  against  him  as  a  Jew,  a  Judaizer,  a 
bribed  renegade,  and  so  on.  Reuchlin,  nothing 
daunted,  set  to  work  upon  the  book  in  his  patient 
hard-working  manner.  Next  he  wrote  a  brilliant 
defence  of  it.  When  the  Emperor  asked  his 
opinion,  he  repeated  Clement's  proposal  to  found 
Talmudical  chairs.  At  each  German  university 
there  should  be  two  professors,  specially  appointed 
for  the  sole  purpose  of  enabling  students  to  become 
acquainted  with  this  book.  "As  to  burning  it," 
he  continues,  in  the  famous  Memorial  addressed  to 


THE    TALMUD  I5 

the  Emperor,  "if  some  fool  came  and  said,  Most 
mighty  Emperor!  your  Majesty  should  really  sup- 
press and  burn  the  books  of  alchymy  [a  fine  ar- 
gumentuni  ad  hominevt]  because  they  contain 
blasphemous,  wicked,  and  absurd  things  against 
our  faith,  what  should  his  Imperial  Majesty  reply 
to  such  a  buffalo  or  ass  but  this  :  Thou  art  a  ninny, 
rather  to  be  laughed  at  than  followed  ?  Now  be- 
cause his  feeble  head  cannot  enter  into  the  depths 
of  a  science,  and  cannot  conceive  it,  and  does 
understand  things  otherwise  than  they  really  are, 
would  you  deem  it  fit  to  burn  such  books  ?" 

Fiercer  and  fiercer  waxed  the  howl,  and  Reuch- 
lin,  the  peaceful  student,  from  a  witness  became  a 
delinquent.  What  he  suffered  for  and  through  the 
Talmud  cannot  be  told  here.  Far  and  wide,  all 
over  Europe,  the  contest  raged.  A  whole  literature 
of  pamphlets,  flying  sheets,  caricatures,  sprang  up. 
University  after  University  was  appealed  to  against 
him.  No  less  than  forty-seven  sittings  were  held  by 
the  theological  Faculty  of  Paris,  which  ended  by 
their  formal  condemnation  of  Reuchlin.  But  he 
was  not  left  to  fight  alone.  Around  him  rallied,  one 
by  one,  Duke  Ulrich  of  Wiirtemberg,  the  Elector 
Frederick  of  Saxony,  Ulrich  von  Hutten,  Franz  von 
Sickingen — he  who  finally  made  the  Colognians 
pay  their  costs  in  the  Reuchlin  trial — Erasmus  of 
Rotterdam,  and  that  whole  brilliant  phalanx  of  the 
"Knights  of  the  Holy  Ghost,"  the  "Hosts  of  Pallas 
Athene,"  the  "Talmiitp/iili,"  as  the  documents  of 
the  period  variously  styled  them  :  they  whom  we 
call  the  Humanists. 


l6  THE   TALMUD 

And  their  palladium  and  their  war-cry  was — 
oh!  wondrous  ways  of  History — the  Talmud!  To 
stand  up  for  Reuchlin  meant,  to  them,  to  stand  up 
for  "  the  Law  ;  to  fight  for  the  Talmud  was  \.o  fight 
for  the  CJnirch!  "  Non  te,"  writes  Egidio  de  Viterbo 
to  Reuchlin,  "sed  Legem:  nopz  Tha/mud,  sed 
EcclesiatnP' 

The  rest  of  the  story  is  written  in  the  "  Epistoloe 
Obscurorum  Virorum,"  and  in  the  early  pages  of 
the  German  Reformation.  The  Talmud  was  not 
burnt  this  time.  On  the  contrary,  its  first  com- 
plete edition  was  printed.  And  in  the  same  year 
of  Grace  1520  a.d.,  when  this  first  edition  went 
through  the  press  at  Venice,  Martin  Luther  burnt 
the  Pope's  bull  at  Wittenberg. 

What  is  the  Talmud  ? 

Again  the  question  rises  before  us  in  its  whole 
formidable  shape;  a  question  which  no  one  has 
yet  answered  satisfactorily.  And  we  labor  in  this 
place  under  more  than  one  disadvantage.  For, 
quite  apart  from  the  difficulties  of  explaining  a  work 
so  utterly  Eastern,  antique,  and  thoroughly  sui 
generis,  to  our  modern  Western  readers,  in  the  space 
of  a  few  pages,  we  labor  under  the  further  dis- 
ability of  not  being  able  to  refer  to  the  work  itself. 
Would  it  not  indeed  be  mere  affectation  to  pre- 
suppose more  than  the  vaguest  acquaintance  with 
its  language  or  even  its  name  in  many  of  our 
readers  .'*  And  while  we  would  fain  enlarge  upon 
such  points  as  a  comparison  between  the  law  laid 
down  i:i  it  with  ours,  or  with  the  contemporary 


THE    TALMUD  IJ 

Greek,  Roman,  and  Persian  laws,  or  those  of  Islam, 
or  even  with  its  own  fundamental  Code,  the  Mosaic  : 
while  we  would  trace  a  number  of  its  ethical, 
ceremonial,  and  doctrinal  points  in  Zoroastrianism, 
in  Christianity, in  Mohammedanism  ;  avast  deal  of 
its  metaphysics  and  philosophy  in  Plato,  Aristotle, 
the  Pythagoreans,  the  Neoplatonists,  and  the 
Gnostics  —  not  to  mention  Spinoza  and  the 
Schellings  of  our  own  day  ;  much  of  its  medicine 
in  Hippocrates  and  Galen,  and  the  Paracelsuses  of 
but  a  few  centuries  ago — we  shall  scarcely  be  able 
to  do  more  than  to  lay  a  few  disjecta  membra  of 
these  things  before  our  readers.  We  cannot  even 
sketch,  in  all  its  bearings,  that  singular  mental 
movement  which  caused  the  best  spirits  of  an  entire 
nation  to  concentrate,  in  spite  of  opposition,  all  their 
energies  for  a  thousand  years  upon  the  writing,  and 
for  another  thousand  years  upon  the  commenting, 
of  this  one  book.  Omitting  all  detail,  which  it  has 
cost  much  to  gather,  and  more  to  suppress,  we  shall 
merely  tell  of  its  development,  of  the  schools  in 
which  it  grew,  of  the  tribunals  which  judged  by  it, 
of  some  of  the  men  that  set  their  seal  on  it. 
We  shall  also  introduce  a  summary  of  its  law, 
speak  of  its  metaphysics,  of  its  moral  philosophy, 
and  quote  many  of  its  proverbs  and  saws — the 
truest  of  all  gauges  of  a  time. 

We  shall,  perhaps,  be  obliged  occasionally  to  ap- 
peal to  some  of  the  extraneous  topics  just  men- 
tioned. The  Talmud,  like  every  other  phenome- 
non, in  order  to  become  comprehensible,  should 
be  considered  only  in  connection  with  things  of  a 


1 8  THE   TALMUD 

similar  kind :  a  fact  almost  entirely  overlooked  to  this 
day.  Being  emphatically  a  Corpus  Juris,  an  encyclo- 
paedia of  law,  civil  and  penal,  ecclesiastical  and  in- 
ternational, human  and  divine,  it  may  best  be  judged 
by  analogy  and  comparison  with  other  legal  codes, 
more  especially  with  the  Justinian  Code  and  its 
Commentaries.  What  the  uninitiated  have  taken 
for  exceptional  "  Rabbinical "  subtleties,  or,  in 
matters  relating  to  the  sexes,  for  gross  offences 
against  modern  taste,  will  then  cause  the  Talmud 
to  stand  rather  favorably  than  otherwise.  The 
Pandects  and  the  Institutes,  the  Novellae  and  the 
Responsa  Prudentium  should  thus  be  constantly 
consulted  and  compared.  No  less  should  our 
English  law,  as  laid  down  in  Blackstone,  wherein 
we  may  see  how  the  most  varied  views  of  right  and 
wrong  have  been  finally  blended  and  harmonized 
with  the  spirit  of  our  times.  But  the  Talmud  is 
more  than  a  book  of  laws.  It  is  a  microcosm, 
embracing,  even  as  does  the  Bible,  heaven  and 
earth.  It  is  as  if  all  the  prose  and  the  poetry,  the 
science,  the  faith  and  speculation  of  the  Old  World 
were,  though  only  in  faint  reflections,  bound  up  in 
it  in  mice.  Comprising  the  time  from  the  rise 
to  the  fall  of  antiquity,  and  a  good  deal  of  its  after- 
glow, the  history  and  culture  of  antiquity  have  to 
be  considered  in  their  various  stages.  But,  above 
all,  it  is  necessary  to  transport  ourselves,  following 
Goethe's  advice,  to  its  birthplace — Palestine  and 
Babylon — the  gorgeous  East  itself,  where  all  things 
glow  in  brighter  colors,  and  grow  into  more  fantas- 
tic shapes  : — • 


THE    TALMUD  I9 

"  Willst  den  Dichter  du  verstehen, 
Musst  in  Dichter's  Lande  gehen." 

The  origin  of  the  Talmud  is  coeval  with  the  re- 
turn from  the  Babylonish  captivity.  One  of  the 
most  mysterious  and  momentous  periods  in  the 
history  of  humanity  is  that  brief  space  of  the 
Exile.  What  were  the  influences  brought  to  bear 
upon  the  captives  during  that  time,  we  know  not. 
But  this  we  know,  that  from  a  reckless,  lawless, 
godless  populace,  they  returned  transformed  into 
a  band  of  Puritans.  The  religion  of  Zerdusht, 
though  it  has  left  its  traces  in  Judaism,  fails  to  ac- 
count for  that  change.  Nor  does  the  Exile  itself 
account  for  it.  Many  and  intense  as  are  the  remi- 
niscences of  its  bitterness,  and  of  yearning  for 
home,  that  have  survived  in  prayer  and  in  song, 
yet  we  know  that  when  the  hour  of  liberty  struck, 
the  forced  colonists  were  loth  to  return  to  the  land 
of  their  fathers.  Yet  the  change  is  there,  palpable, 
unmistakable — a  change  which  wc  may  regard  as 
almost  miraculous.  Scarcely  aware  before  of  the 
existence  of  their  glorious  national  literature,  the 
people  now  began  to  press  round  these  brands 
plucked  from  the  fire — the  scanty  records  of  their 
faith  and  history — with  a  fierce  and  passionate 
love,  a  love  stronger  even  than  that  of  wife  and 
child.  These  same  documents,  as  they  were  grad- 
ually formed  into  a  canon,  became  the  immutable 
centre  of  their  lives,  their  actions,  their  thoughts, 
their  very  dreams.  From  that  time  forth,  with 
scarcely  any  intermission,  the  keenest  as  well  as 
the  most  poetical  minds  of  the  nation  remained 


20  THE   TALMUD 

fixed  upon  them.  "Turn  it  and  turn  it  again," 
says  the  Talmud,  with  regard  to  the  Bible,  "for 
everything  is  in  it."  "  Search  the  Scriptures,"  is 
the  distinct  utterance  of  the  New  Testament. 

The  natural  consequence  ensued.  Gradually, 
imperceptibly  almost,  from  a  mere  expounding  and 
investigation  for  purposes  of  edification  or  instruc- 
tion on  some  special  point,  this  activity  begot  a 
science,  a  science  that  assumed  the  very  widest 
dimensions.  Its  technical  name  is  already  con- 
tained in  the  Book  of  Chronicles.  It  is  "Midrash" 
(from  darasJi,  to  study,  expound) — a  term  which  the 
Authorized  Version  renders  by  "  Story. "^ 

There  is  scarcely  a  more  fruitful  source  of  mis- 
conceptions upon  this  subject  than  the  liquid 
nature,  so  to  speak,  of  its  technical  terms.  They 
mean  anything  and  everything,  at  once  most  general 
and  most  special.  Nearly  all  of  them  signify  in 
the  first  instance  simply  "  study."  Next  they  are 
used  for  some  one  very  special  branch  of  this 
study.  Then  they  indicate,  at  times  a  peculiar 
method,  at  others  the  works  which  have  grown  out 
of  these  either  general  or  special  mental  labors. 
Thus  Midrash,  from  the  abstract  "  expounding," 
came  to  be  applied,  first  to  the  "  exposition  "  itself 
— even  as  our  terms  "  work,  investigation,  enquiry," 
imply  both  process  and  product ;  and  finally,  as  a 
special  branch  of  exposition — the  legendary — was 
more  popular  than  the  rest,  to  this  one  branch  only 
and  to  the  books  that  chiefly  represented  it. 

^  See  2  Chron.  xiii.  22,  xxiv.  27. 


THE    TALMUD  21 

For  there  had  sprung  up  almost  innumerable 
modes  of  "searching  the  Scriptures."  In  the 
quaintly  ingenious  manner  of  the  times,  four  of 
the  chief  methods  were  found  in  the  Persian  word 
Paradise,  spelt  in  vowelless  Semitic  fashion,  PRDS. 
Each  one  of  these  mysterious  letters  was  taken, 
mnemonically,  as  the  initial  of  some  technical 
word  that  indicated  one  of  these  four  methods. 
The  one  called  P  \_peshat'\  aimed  at  the  simple 
understanding  of  words  and  things,  in  accordance 
with  the  primary  exegetical  law  of  the  Talmud, 
"that  no  verse  of  the  Scripture  ever  practically 
travelled  beyond  its  literal  meaning" — though  it 
might  be  explained,  homiletically  and  otherwise, 
in  innumerable  new  ways.  The  second,  R  \renies\ 
means  Hint,  i.  c,  the  discovery  of  the  indications 
contained  in  certain  seemingly  superfluous  letters 
and  signs  in  Scripture.  These  were  taken  to  refer 
to  laws  not  distinctly  mentioned,  but  either  existing 
traditionally  or  newly  promulgated.  This  method, 
when  more  generally  applied,  begot  a  kind  of 
vicmo7'ia  tccJinica,  a  stenography  akin  to  the  "  No- 
tarikon  "  of  the  Romans.  Points  and  notes  were 
added  to  the  margins  of  scriptural  MSS.,  and  the 
foundation  of  the  Massorah,  or  diplomatic  preser- 
vation of  the  text,  was  thus  laid.  The  third,  D 
\dc7"ds]L\  was  homiletic  application  of  that  which 
had  been  to  that  which  was  and  would  be,  of  pro- 
phetical and  historical  dicta  to  the  actual  condition 
of  things.  It  was  a  peculiar  kind  of  sermon,  with 
all  the  aids  of  dialectics  and  poetry,  of  parable, 
gnome,  proverb,  legent^,  and  the  rest,  exactly  as  we 


22  THE    TALMUD 

find  it  in  the  New  Testament.  The  fourth,  S, 
stood  for  sod,  secret,  mystery.  This  was  the  Secret 
Science,  into  which  but  few  were  initiated.  It  was 
theosophy,  metaphysics,  angelology,  a  host  of  wild 
and  glowing  visions  of  things  beyond  earth.  Faint 
echoes  of  this  science  survive  in  Neoplatonism,  in 
Gnosticism,  in  the  Kabbalah,  in  "  Hermes  Trisme- 
gistus."  But  few  were  initiated  into  these  things 
of  "The  Creation  "  and  of  "The  Chariot,"  as  it 
was  also  called,  in  allusion  to  Ezekiel's  vision.  Yet 
here  again  the  power  of  the  vague  and  mysterious 
was  so  strong,  that  the  word  Paradise  gradually 
indicated  this  last  branch,  the  secret  science  only. 
Later,  in  Gnosticism,  it  came  to  mean  the  "  Spirit- 
ual Christ." 

There  is  a  weird  story  in  the  Talmud,  which  has 
given  rise  to  the  wildest  explanations,  but  which 
will  become  intelligible  by  the  foregoing  lines. 
"Four  men,"  it  says,  "entered  Paradise.  One  be- 
held and  died.  One  beheld  and  lost  his  senses. 
One  destroyed  the  young  plants.  One  only  en- 
tered in  peace  and  came  out  in  peace." — The  names 
of  all  four  are  given.  They  are  all  exalted  masters 
of  the  law.  The  last  but  one,  he  who  destroyed 
the  young  plants,  is  Elisha  ben  Abuyah,  the  Faust 
of  the  Talmud,  who,  while  sitting  in  the  academy, 
at  the  feet  of  his  teachers,  to  study  the  law,  kept 
the  "profane  books" — of  "Homeros,"  to  wit — hid- 
den in  his  garment,  and  from  whose  mouth  "  Greek 
song"  never  ceased  to  flow.  How  he,  notwith- 
standing his  early  scepticism,  rapidly  rises  to  emi- 
nence in  that  same  law,  finally  falls  away  and  be- 


THE   TALMUD  23 

comes  a  traitor  and  an  outcast,  and  his  very  name 
a  thing  of  unutterable  horror — how,  one  day  (it  was 
the  great  day  of  atonement)  he  passes  the  ruins  of 
the  temple,  and  hears  a  voice  within  "  murmuring 
like  a  dove" — "all  men  shall  be  forgiven  this  day 
save  Elisha  ben  Abuyah,  who,  knowing  me,  has  be- 
trayed me" — how,  after  his  death  the  flames  will 
not  cease  to  hover  over  his  grave,  until  his  one 
faithful  disciple,  the  "  Light  of  the  Law,"  Meir, 
throws  himself  over  it,  swearing  a  holy  oath  that 
he  will  not  partake  of  the  joys  of  the  world  to  come 
without  his  beloved  master,  and  that  he  will  not 
move  from  that  spot  until  his  master's  soul  shall 
have  found  grace  and  salvation  before  the  Throne 
of  Mercy — all  this  and  a  number  of  other  incidents 
form  one  of  the  most  stirring  poetical  pictures  of 
the  whole  Talmud.  The  last  of  the  four  is  Akiba, 
the  most  exalted,  most  romantic,  and  most  heroic 
character  perhaps  in  that  vast  gallery  of  the  learned 
of  his  time;  he  who,  in  the  last  revolt  under  Trajan 
and  Hadrian,  expiated  his  patriotic  rashness  at  the 
hands  of  the  Roman  executioners,  and — the  legend 
adds — whose  soul  fled  just  when,  in  his  last  agony, 
his  mouth  cried  out  the  last  word  of  the  confession 
of  God's  unity : — "  Hear,  O  Israel,  the  Lord  our 
God  is  One!' 

The  Talmud  is  the  storehouse  of  "Midrash,"  in 
its  widest  sense,  and  in  all  its  branches.  What  we 
said  of  the  fluctuation  of  terms  applies  emphatic^ 
ally  also  to  this  word  Talmud.  It  means  in  the 
first  instance  nothing  but  "study,"  "learning," 
from   lamad,  to  learn ;   next  indicating  a  special 


24  THE    TALMUD 

method  of  "learning"  or  rather  arguing,  it  finally 
became  the  name  of  the  great  Corpus  Juris  of 
Judaism. 

When  we  speak  of  the  Talmud  as  a  legal  code, 
we  trust  we  shall  not  be  understood  too  literally. 
It  resembles  about  as  much  what  we  generally 
understand  by  that  name  as  a  primeval  forest  re- 
sembles a  Dutch  garden. 

Nothing  indeed  can  equal  the  state  of  utter 
amazement  into  which  the  modern  investigator 
finds  himself  plunged  at  the  first  sight  of  these 
luxuriant  Talmudical  wildernesses.  Schooled  in 
the  harmonizing,  methodizing  systems  of  the  West 
— systems  that  condense,  and  arrange,  and  classify, 
and  give  everything  its  fitting  place  and  its  fitting 
position  in  that  place — he  feels  almost  stupefied 
here.  The  language,  the  style,  the  method,  the 
very  sequence  of  things  (a  sequence  that  often 
appears  as  logical  as  our  dreams),  the  amazingly 
varied  nature  of  these  things — everything  seems 
tangled,  confused,  chaotic.  It  is  only  after  a  time 
that  the  student  learns  to  distinguish  between  two 
mighty  currents  in  the  book — currents  that  at 
times  flow  parallel,  at  times  seem  to  work  upon 
each  other,  and  to  impede  each  other's  action  :  the 
one  emanating  from  the  brain,  the  other  from  the 
heart — the  one  prose,  the  other  poetry — the  one 
carrying  with  it  all  those  mental  faculties  that 
manifest  themselves  in  arguing,  investigating, 
comparing,  developing,  bringing  a  thousand  points 
to  bear  upon  one  and  one  upon  a  thousand  ;  the 
other  springing  from  the  realms  of  fancy,  of  imag- 


THE    TALMUD  2$ 

ination,  feeling,  humor,  and  above  all  from  that 
precious  combination  of  still,  almost  sad,  pensive- 
ness  with  quick  catholic  sympathies,  which  in 
German  is  called  Gc7JiiitJi.  These  two  currents  the 
Midrash,  in  its  various  aspects,  had  caused  to  set  in 
the  direction  of  the  Bible,  and  they  soon  found  in 
it  two  vast  fields  for  the  display  of  all  their  power 
and  energy.  The  logical  faculties  turned  to  the 
legal  portions  in  Exodus,  Leviticus,  Deuteronomy 
— developing,  seeking,  and  solving  a  thousand  real 
or  apparent  difficulties  and  contradictions  with 
what,  as  tradition,  had  been  living  in  the  hearts 
and  mouths  of  the  people  from  time  immemorial. 
The  other — the  imaginative  faculties — took  posses- 
sion of  the  prophetical,  ethical,  historical,  and, 
quaintly  enough,  sometimes  even  of  the  legal  por- 
tions of  the  Bible,  and  transformed  the  whole  into 
a  vast  series  of  themes  almost  musical  in  their  won- 
derful and  capricious  variations.  The  first-named 
is  called  "  Halachah"  {Rule,  Norm),  a  term  applied 
both  to  the  process  of  evolving  legal  enactments 
and  the  enactments  themselves.  The  other,  "  Hag- 
gadah  "  {Legend,  Saga)  not  so  much  in  our  modern 
sense  of  the  word,  though  a  great  part  of  its  con- 
tents comes  under  that  head,  but  because  it  was 
only  a  "saying,"  a  thing  without  authority,  a  play 
of  fancy,  an  allegory,  a  parable,  a  tale,  that  pointed 
a  moral  and  illustrated  a  question,  that  smoothed 
the  billows  of  fierce  debate,  roused  the  slumbering 
attention,  and  was  generally — to  use  its  own  phrase 
— a  "comfort  and  a  blessing." 

The  Talmud,  which  is  composed   of  these  two 


26  THE    TALMUD 

elements,  the  legal  and  the  legendary,  is  divided 
into  MiSHNAH  and  Gemara  :  two  terms  again  of 
uncertain,  shifting  meaning.  Originally  indicat- 
ing, like  the  technical  words  mentioned  already, 
"study,"  they  both  became  terms  for  special 
studies,  and  indicated  special  works.  The  Mish- 
nah,  from  sJianah  {tana),  to  learn,  to  repeat,  has 
been  of  old  translated  (hor^puffn:;,  second  law.  But 
this  derivation,  correct  as  it  seems  literally,  is  in- 
correct in  the  first  instance.  It  simply  means 
"Learning,"  like  Gemara, which,  besides,  indicates 
"complement "  to  the  Mishnah — itself  a  comple- 
ment to  the  Mosaic  code,  but  in  such  a  manner 
that  in  developing  and  enlarging,  it  supersedes  it. 
The  Mishnah,  on  its  own  part  again,  forms  a  kind 
of  text  to  which  the  Gemara  is  not  so  much  a 
scholion  as  a  critical  expansion.  The  Pentateuch 
remains  in  all  cases  the  background  and  latent 
source  of  the  Mishnah.  But  it  is  the  business  of 
the  Gemara  to  examine  into  the  legitimacy  and 
correctness  of  this  Mishnic  development  in  single 
instances.  The  Pentateuch  remained  under  all 
circumstances  the  immutable,  divinely  given  con- 
stitution, the  ivrittcji  law :  in  contradistinction  to 
it,  the  Mishnah,  together  with  the  Gemara,  was 
called  the  oral,  or  "  unwritten "  law,  not  unlike 
the  unwritten  Greek Tij-oa!, the  Roman  "Lex  Non 
Scripta,"  the  Sunnah,  or  our  own  common  law. 

There  are  few  chapters  in  the  whole  History  of 
Jurisprudence  more  obscure  than  the  origin,  devel- 
opment, and  completion  of  this  "Oral  Law." 
There  must  have  existed  from  the  very  beginning 


THE    TALMUD  2/ 

of  the  Mosaic  law  a  number  of  corollary  laws, 
which  explained  in  detail  most  of  the  rules  broadly 
laid  down  in  it.  Apart  from  these,  it  was  but 
natural  that  the  Enactments  of  that  primitive 
Council  of  the  Desert,  the  Elders,  and  their  suc- 
cessors in  each  period,  together  with  the  verdicts 
issued  by  the  later  "judges  within  the  gates,"  to 
whom  the  Pentateuch  distinctly  refers,  should  have 
become  precedents,  and  been  handed  down  as 
such.  Apocryphal  writings — notably  the  fourth 
book  of  Ezra — not  to  mention  Philo  and  the 
Church  Fathers,  speak  of  fabulous  numbers  of 
books  that  had  been  given  to  Moses  together  with 
the  Pentateuch  :  thus  indicating  the  common  be- 
lief in  the  divine  origin  of  the  supplementary  laws 
that  had  existed  among  the  people  from  time  im- 
memorial. Jewish  tradition  traces  the  bulk  of  the 
oral  injunctions,  through  a  chain  of  distinctly-named 
authorities,  to  "Sinai"  itself.  It  mentions  in  de- 
tail how  Moses  communicated  those  minutiae  of  his 
legislation,  in  which  he  had  been  instructed  during 
the  mysterious  forty  days  and  nights  on  the  Mount, 
to  the  chosen  guides  of  the  people,  in  such  a  man- 
ner that  they  should  for  ever  remain  engraven  on 
the  tablets  of  their  hearts. 

A  long  space  intervenes  between  the  Mosaic 
period  and  that  of  the  Mishnah.  The  ever  grow- 
ing wants  of  the  ever  disturbed  commonwealth  ne- 
cessitated new  laws  and  regulations  at  every  turn. 
A  difficulty,  however,  arose,  unknown  to  other 
legislations.  In  despotic  states  a  decree  is  issued, 
promulgating    the    new    law.      In    constitutional 


28  THE    TALMUD 

States  a  Bill  is  brought  in.  The  supreme  authority, 
if  it  finds  it  meet  and  right  to  make  this  new  law, 
makes  it.  The  case  was  different  in  the  Jewish 
commonwealth  of  the  post-exilian  times.  Among 
the  things  that  were  irredeemably  lost  with  the  first 
temple  were  the  "  Urim  and  Thummim  "  of  the  high- 
priest — the  oracle.  With  Malachi  the  last  prophet 
had  died.  Both  for  the  promulgation  of  a  new  law 
and  the  abrogation  of  an  old  one,  a  higher  sanction 
was  requisite  than  a  mere  majority  of  the  legisla- 
tive council.  The  new  act  must  be  proved,  directly 
or  indirectly,  from  the  "Word  of  God  " — proved  to 
have  been  promulgated  by  the  Supreme  King — 
hidden  and  bound  up,  as  it  were,  in  its  very  letters 
from  the  beginning.  This  was  not  easy  in  all 
cases ;  especially  when  a  certain  number  of  her- 
meneutical  rules,  not  unlike  those  used  in  the 
Roman  schools  (inferences,  conclusions  from  the 
minor  to  the  major  and  vice  versa,  analogies  of 
ideas  or  objects,  general  and  special  statements, 
etc.),  had  come  to  be  laid  down. 

Apart  from  the  new  laws  requisite  at  sudden 
emergencies,  there  were  many  of  those  old  tradi- 
tional ones,  for  which  the  point  cTappid  had  to  be 
found,  when,  as  established  legal  matters,  they  came 
before  the  critical  eye  of  the  schools.  And  these 
schools  themselves,  in  their  ever  restless  activity, 
evolved  new  laws,  according  to  their  logical  rules, 
even  when  they  were  not  practically  wanted  nor 
likely  ever  to  come  into  practical  use — simply  as  a 
matter  of  science.  Hence  there  is  a  double  action 
perceptible  in  this  legal  development.     Either  the 


THE    TALMUD  29 

scriptural  verse  forms  the  terminus  a  quo,  or  the 
terminus  ad  q^ieni.  It  is  either  the  starting-point 
for  a  discussion  which  ends  in  the  production  of 
some  new  enactment ;  or  some  new  enactment,  or 
one  never  before  investigated,  is  traced  back  to  the 
divine  source  by  an  outward  "  hint,"  however  insig- 
nificant. 

This  process  of  evolving  new  precepts  from  old 
ones  by  "signs," — a  word  curiously  enough  used 
also  by  Blackstone  in  his  "development"  of  the 
law — may  in  some  instances  have  been  applied  with 
too  much  freedom.  Yet,  while  the  Talrhudical 
Code  practically  differs  from  the  Mosaic  as  much 
as  our  Digest  will  some  day  differ  from  the  laws  of 
the  time  of  Canute,  and  as  the  Justinian  Code  differs 
from  the  Twelve  Tables,  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
these  fundamental  laws  have  in  all  cases  been  con- 
sulted, carefully  and  impartially  as  to  their  spirit, 
their  letter  being  often  but  the  vessel  or  outer 
symbol.  The  often  uncompromising  severity  of  the 
Pentateuch,  especially  in  the  province  of  the  penal 
law,  had  certainly  become  much  softened  down 
under  the  milder  influences  of  the  culture  of  later 
days.  Several  of  its  injunctions,  which  had  become 
impracticable,  were  circumscribed,  or  almost  con- 
stitutionally abrogated,  by  the  introduction  of  ex- 
ceptional formalities.  Some  of  its  branches  also 
had  developed  in  a  direction  other  than  what  at  first 
sight  seems  to  have  been  anticipated.  But  the 
power  vested  in  the  "judge  of  those  days  "  was  in 
general  most  sparingly  and  conscientiously  applied. 

This  whole  process  of  the  development  of  the 


30  THE    TALMUD 

"Law"  was  in  the  hands  of  the  "  Scribes,"  who, 
according  to  the  New  Testament,  "  sit  in  the  seat 
of  Moses."  We  shall  speak  presently  of  the 
"Pharisees"  with  whom  the  word  is  often  coupled. 
Here,  meantime,  we  must  once  more  distinguish 
between  the  different  meanings  of  the  word  "  Scribe  " 
at  different  periods.  For  there  are  three  stages  in 
the  oral  compilation  of  the  Talmudical  Code,  each 
of  which  is  named  after  a  special  class  of  doctors. 
The  task  of  the  first  class  of  these  masters — the 
"  Scribes  "  by  way  of  eminence,  whose  time  ranges 
from  the  return  from  Babylon  down  to  the  Greco- 
Syrian  persecutions  220  B.C.) — was  above  all  to 
preserve  the  sacred  Text,  as  it  had  survived  after 
many  mishaps.  They  "enumerated"  not  merely 
the  precepts,  but  the  words,  the  letters,  the  signs 
of  the  Scripture,  thereby  guarding  it  from  all  future 
interpolations  and  corruptions.  They  had  further 
to  explain  these  precepts,  in  accordance  with  the 
collateral  tradition  of  which  they  were  the  guard- 
ians. They  had  to  instruct  the  people,  to  preach 
in  the  synagogues,  to  teach  in  the  schools.  They 
further,  on  their  own  authority,  erected  certain 
"Fences,"  i.  c,  such  new  injunctions  as  they  deemed 
necessary  merely  for  the  better  keeping  of  the  old 
precepts.  The  whole  work  of  these  men  ("  Men  of 
the  Great  Synagogue")  is  well  summed  up  in  their 
adage  :  "  Have  a  care  in  legal  decisions,  send  forth 
many  disciples,  and  make  a  fence  around  the  law." 
More  pregnant  still  is  the  motto  of  their  last  repre- 
sentative— the  only  one  whose  name,  besides  those 
of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  the  supposed  founders  of 


THE    TALMUD  3 1 

this  body,  has  survived — Simon  the  Just:  "On 
three  things  stands  the  world  :  on  law,  on  worship, 
and  on  charity." 

After  the  "  Scribes  "  —  z«r'  e^o/rjy  —  come  the 
"Learners,"  or  "  Repeaters,"  also  called  Banaim, 
"Master-builders" — from  220  B.C.  to  220  a.d.  In 
this  period  falls  the  Maccabean  Revolution,  the 
birth  of  Christ,  the  destruction  of  the  temple  by 
Titus,  the  revolt  of  Bar-Cochba  under  Hadrian,  the 
final  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  and  the  total  expa- 
triation of  the  Jews.  During  this  time  Palestine 
was  ruled  successively  by  Persians,  Egyptians, 
Syrians,  and  Romans.  But  the  legal  labors  that 
belong  to  this  period  were  never  seriously  inter- 
rupted. However  dread  the  events,  the  schools 
continued  their  studies.  The  masters  were  mar- 
tyred time  after  time,  the  academies  were  razed  to 
the  ground,  the  practical  and  the  theoretical  occupa- 
tion with  the  law  was  proscribed  on  pain  of  death 
— yet  in  no  instance  is  the  chain  of  the  living  tra- 
dition broken.  With  their  last  breath  the  dying 
masters  appointed  and  ordained  their  successors  ; 
for  one  academy  that  was  reduced  to  a  heap  of 
ashes  in  Palestine,  three  sprang  up  in  Babylonia, 
and  the  Law  flowed  on,  and  was  perpetuated  in  the 
face  of  a  thousand  deaths. 

The  chief  bearers  and  representatives  of  these 
divine  legal  studies  were  the  President  (called  Nasi, 
Prince),  and  the  Vice-President  (Ab-Beth-Din  = 
Father  of  the  House  of  Judgment)  of  the  highest 
legal  assembly,  the  Synedrion,  aramaized  into  San- 
hedrin.    There  were  three  Sanhedrins  :  one  "  Great 


32  THE    TALMUD 

Sanhedrin,"  two  "lesser"  ones.  Whenever  the 
New  Testament  mentions  the  "Priests,  the  Elders, 
and  the  Scribes  "  together,  it  means  the  Great 
Sanhedrin.  This  constituted  the  highest  ecclesi- 
astical and  civil  tribunal.  It  consisted  of  seventy- 
one  members,  chosen  from  the  foremost  priests, 
the  heads  of  tribes  and  families,  and  from  the 
"Learned,"  i.e.,  the  "Scribes"  or  Lawyers.  It 
was  no  easy  task  to  be  elected  a  member  of  this 
Supreme  Council.  The  candidate  had  to  be  a  su- 
perior man,  both  mentally  and  bodily.  He  was 
not  to  be  either  too  young  or  too  old.  Above  all, 
he  was  to  be  an  adept  both  in  the  "  Law"  and  in 
Science. 

When  people  read  of  "law"  "masters,"  or  "doc- 
tors of  the  law,"  they  do  not,  it  seems  to  us,  always 
fully  realize  what  that  word  "law"  means  in  Old 
or  rather  New  Testament  language.  It  should  be 
remembered  that,  as  we  have  already  indicated,  it 
stands  for  all  and  every  knowledge,  since  all  and 
every  knowledge  was  requisite  for  the  understand- 
ing of  it.  The  Mosaic  code  has  injunctions  about 
the  sabbatical  journey ;  the  distance  had  to  be 
measured  and  calculated,  and  mathematics  were 
called  into  play.  Seeds,  plants,  and  animals  had  to 
be  studied  in  connection  with  the  many  precepts 
regarding  them,  and  natural  history  had  to  be  ap- 
pealed to.  Then  there  were  the  purely  hygienic 
paragraphs,  which  necessitated  for  their  precision 
a  knowledge  of  all  the  medical  science  of  the  time. 
The  "seasons  "  and  the  feast-days  were  regulated 
by  the  phases  of  the  moon  ;   and  astronomy — if 


THE    TALMUD  ;^;^ 

only  ill  its  elements— had  to  be  studied.  And— as 
the  commonwealth  successively  came  in  contact, 
however  much  against  its  will  at  first,  with  Greece 
and  Rome, — their  history,  geography,  and  language 
came  to  be  added  as  a  matter  of  instruction  to 
those  of  Persia  and  Babylon.  It  was  only  a  hand- 
ful of  well-meaning  but  narrow-minded  men,  like 
the  Essenes,  who  would  not,  for  their  own  part, 
listen  to  the  repeal  of  certain  temporary  "  Decrees 
of  Danger."  When  Hellenic  scepticism  in  its 
most  seductive  form  had,  during  the  Syrian  trou- 
bles, begun  to  seek  its  victims  even  in  the  midst  of 
the  "  Sacred  Vineyard,"  and  threatened  to  under- 
mine all  patriotism  and  all  independence,  a  curse 
was  pronounced  upon  Hellenism  :  much  as  German 
patriots,  at  the  beginning  of  this  century,  loathed 
the  very  sound  of  the  French  language ;  or  as, 
not  so  very  long  ago,  all  things  "  foreign " 
were  regarded  with  a  certain  suS:picion  in  Eng- 
land. But,  the  danger  over,  the  Greek  language 
and  culture  were  restored  to  their  previous  high 
position  in  both  the  school  and  the  house,  as 
indeed  the  union  of  Hebrew  and  Greek,  "the 
Talith  and  the  Pallium,"  "Shem  and  Japheth,  who 
had  been  blessed  together  by  Noah,  and  who  would 
always  be  blessed  in  union,"  was  strongly  insisted 
upon.  We  shall  return  to  the  polyglot  character  of 
those  days,  the  common  language  of  which  was  an 
odd  mixture  of  Greek,  Aramaic,  Latin,  Syriac,  He- 
brew ;  but  the  member  of  the  Sanhedrin  had  to  be 
a  good  linguist.  He  was  not  to  be  dependent  on 
the  possibly  tinged  version  of  an  interpreter.     But 

3 


34  THE    TALMUD 

not  only  was  science,  in  its  widest  sense,  required 
in  him,  but  even  an  acquaintance  with  its  fantastic 
shadows,  such  as  astrology,  magic,  and  the  rest,  in 
order  that  he,  as  both  lawgiver  and  judge,  should 
be  able  to  enter  also  into  the  popular  feeling  about 
these  widespread  "Arts."  Proselytes,  eunuchs, 
freedmen,  were  rigidly  excluded  from  the  Assem- 
bly. So  were  those  who  could  not  prove  them- 
selves the  legitimate  offspring  of  priests,  Levites, 
or  Israelites.  And  so,  further,  were  gamblers, 
betting-men,  money-lenders,  and  dealers  in  illegal 
produce.  To  the  provision  about  the  age,  viz.,  that 
the  senator  should  be  neither  too  far  advanced  in 
age  "lest  his  judgment  might  be  enfeebled,"  nor 
too  young  "  lest  it  might  be  immature  and  hasty ;" 
and  to  the  proofs  required  of  his  vast  theoretical 
and  practical  knowledge — for  he  was  only  by  slow 
degrees  promoted  from  an  obscure  judgeship  in  his 
native  hamlet  to  the  senatorial  dignity — there  came 
to  be  added  also  that  wonderfully  fine  rule,  that  he 
must  be  a  married  man  and  have  children  of  his 
own.  Deep  miseries  of  families  would  be  laid  bare 
before  him,  and  he  should  bring  with  him  a  heart 
full  of  sympathy. 

Of  the  practical  administration  of  justice  by  the 
Sanhedrin  we  have  yet  to  speak  when  we  come  to 
the  Corpus  Juris  itself.  It  now  behooves  us  to 
pause  a  moment  at  those  "schools  and  academies" 
of  which  we  have  repeatedly  made  mention,  and  of 
which  the  Sanhedrin  formed,  as  it  were,  the  crown 
and  the  highest  consummation. 

Eighty  years  before  Christ,  schools  flourished 


THE    TALMUD  35 

throughout  the  length  and  the  breadth  of  the  land  ; 
— education  had  been  made  compulsory.  While 
there  is  not  a  single  term  for  "school"  to  be  found 
before  the  Captivity,  there  were  by  that  time  about 
a  dozen  in  common  usage."  Here  are  a  few  of  the 
innumerable  popular  sayings  of  the  period,  beto- 
kening the  paramount  importance  which  public  in- 
struction had  assumed  in  the  life  of  the  nation  : 
"Jerusalem  was  destroyed  because  the  instruction 
of  the  young  was  neglected."  "The  world  is  only 
saved  by  the  breath  of  the  school-children."  "  Even 
for  the  rebuilding  of  the  Temple  the  schools  must 
not  be  interrupted."  "  Study  is  more  meritorious 
than  sacrifice."  "A  scholar  is  greater  than  a  pro- 
phet." "  You  should  revere  the  teacher  even  more 
than  your  father.  The  latter  only  brought  you 
into  this  world,  the  former  indicates  the  way  into 
the  next.  But  blessed  is  the  son  who  has  learnt 
from  his  father ;  he  shall  revere  him  both  as  his 
father  and  his  master  ;  and  blessed  is  the  father 
who  has  instructed  his  son." 

>  Some  of  these  terms  are  Greek,  like  uXrTo^,  iX^o:;  ;  some, 
belonging  to  the  pellucid  idiom  of  the  people,  the  Aramaic, 
poetically  indicated  at  times  the  special  arrangement  of  the 
small  and  big  scholars,  ^.  ^.  "Array,"  "  Vineyard  "  ("where 
they  sat  in  rows  as  stands  the  blooming  vine  ") :  while  others 
are  of  so  uncertain  a  derivation,  that  they  may  belong  to 
either  language.  The  technical  term  for  the  highest  school, 
for  instance,  has  long  formed  a  crux  for  etymologists.  It  is 
Kallah.  This  may  be  either  the  Hebrew  word  for  "  Bride," 
a  well-known  allegorical  expression  for  science,  "  assiduously 
to  be  courted,  not  lightly  to  be  won,  and  easily  estranged;  " 
or  it  may  be  the  slightly  mutilated  Greek  <TyoX-q^  or  it  may  lit- 
erally be  our  own  word  Univer-sify,  from  Kol,  all,  universus : 
an  all-embracing  institution  of  all  branches  of  learning. 


36  THE    TALMUD 

The  "  High  Colleges  "  or  "Kallahs"^  only  met 
during  some  months  in  the  year.  Three  weeks 
before  the  term  the  Dean  prepared  the  students 
for  the  lectures  to  be  delivered  by  the  Rector,  and 
so  arduous  became  the  task,  as  the  number  of  the 
disciples  increased,  that  in  time  no  less  than  seven 
Deans  had  to  be  appointed.  Yet  the  mode  of 
teaching  was  not  that  of  our  modern  universities. 
The  professors  did  not  deliver  lectures,  which  the 
disciples,  like  the  Student  in  "  Faust,"  could  "com- 
fortably take  home  in  black  and  white."  Here  all 
was  life,  movement,  debate  ;  question  was  met  by 
counter-question,  answers  were  given  wrapped  up 
in  allegories  or  parables,  the  inquirer  was  led  to 
deduce  the  questionable  point  for  himself  by 
analogy — the  nearest  approach  to  the  Socratic 
method.  The  New  Testament  furnishes  many 
specimens  of  this  contemporary  method  of  instruc- 
tion. 

The  highest  rank  in  the  estimation  of  the  people 
was  not  reserved  for  the  "  Priests,"  about  whose 
real  position  some  extraordinary  notions  seem  still 
afloat — nor  for  the  "  Nobles  " — but  for  these  Mas- 
ters of  the  Law,  the  "  Wise,"  the  "  Disciples  of  the 
Wise."  There  is  something  almost  German  in  the 
profound  reverence  uniformly  shown  to  these  rep- 
resentatives of  science  and  learning,  however  poor 
and  insignificant  in  person  and  rank.  Many  of  the 
most  eminent  "Doctors  "  were  but  humble  trades- 
men. They  were  tentmakers,  sandalmakers, 
weavers,   carpenters,   tanners,   bakers,    cooks.     A 

'  See  preceding  note. 


THE    TALMUD  37 

newly-elected  President  was  found  by  his  prede- 
cessor, who  had  been  ignominiously  deposed  for  his 
overbearing  manner,  all  grimy  in  the  midst  of  his 
charcoal  mounds.  Of  all  things  the  most  hated 
were  idleness  and  asceticism ;  piety  and  learning 
themselves  only  received  their  proper  estimation 
when  joined  to  healthy  bodily  work.  "  It  is  well 
to  add  a  trade  to  your  studies  ;  you  will  then  be  free 
from  sin." — "The  tradesman  at  his  work  need  not 
rise  before  the  greatest  Doctor." — "Greater  is  he 
who  derives  his  livelihood  from  work  than  he  who 
fears  God  " — are  some  of  the  most  common  dicta 
of  the  period. 

The  exalted  place  thus  given  to  Work,  as  on  the 
one  hand  it  prevented  an  abject  worship  of  Learn- 
ing, so  on  the  other  it  kept  all  ascetic  eccentrici- 
ties from  the  body  of  the  people.  And  there  was 
always  some  danger  of  them  at  hand.  When  the 
Temple  lay  in  ashes,  men  would  no  longer  eat  meat 
or  drink  wine.  A  Sage  remonstrated  with  them, 
but  they  replied,  weeping :  "  Once  the  flesh  of  sac- 
rifices was  burnt  upon  the  Altar  of  God.  The  altar 
is  thrown  down.  Once  libations  of  wine  were 
poured  out.  They  are  no  more."  "  But  you  eat 
bread;  there  were  bread-offerings."  "You  are 
right,  Master,  we  shall  eat  fruit  only."  "  But  the 
first-fruits  were  offered  up."  "We  shall  refrain 
from  them."  "  But  you  drink  water,  and  there 
were  libations  of  water."  And  they  knew  not 
what  to  reply.  Then  he  comforted  them  by  the 
assurance  that  He  who  had  destroyed  Jerusalem 
had  promised  to  rebuild  it,  and  that  proper  mourn- 


38  THE    TALMUD 

ing  was  right  and  meet,  but  that  it  must  not  be  of 
a  nature  to  weaken  the  body  for  work. 

Another  most  striking  story  is  that  of  the  Sage 
who,  walkmg  in  a  market-place  crowded  with  peo- 
ple, suddenly  encountered  the  prophet  Elijah,  and 
asked  him  who,  out  of  that  vast  multitude,  would 
be  saved.  Whereupon  the  prophet  first  pointed 
out  a  weird-looking  creature,  a  turnkey,  "  because 
he  was  merciful  to  his  prisoners;"  and  next  two 
common-looking  tradesmen,  who  came  walking 
through  the  crowd,  pleasantly  chatting.  The  Sage 
instantly  rushed  towards  them,  and  asked  them  what 
were  their  saving  works.  But  they,  much  puzzled, 
replied:  "We  are  but  poor  workmen  who  live  by 
our  trade.  All  that  can  be  said  for  us  is  that  we 
are  always  of  good  cheer,  and  are  good-natured. 
When  we  meet  anybody  who  seems  sad  we  join 
him,  and  we  talk  to  him,  and  cheer  him,  so  long 
that  he  must  forget  his  grief.  And  if  we  know  of 
two  people  who  have  quarrelled,  we  talk  to  them 
and  persuade  them,  until  we  have  made  them 
friends  again.     This  is  our  whole  life."  .... 

Before  leaving  this  period  of  Mishnic  develop- 
ment, we  have  yet  to  speak  of  one  or  two  things. 
This  period  is  the  one  in  which  Christianity  arose; 
and  it  may  be  as  well  to  touch  here  upon  the  rela- 
tion between  Christianity  and  the  Talmud — a  sub- 
ject much  discussed  of  late.  Were  not  the  whole 
of  our  general  views  on  the  difference  between 
Judaism  and  Christianity  greatly  confused,  people 
would  certainly  not  be  so  very  much  surprised  at 
the  striking  parallels  of  dogma  and  parable,  of  alle- 


THE   TALMUD  39 

gory  and  proverb,  exhibited  by  the  Gospel  and  the 
Talmudical  writings.  The  New  Testament,  writ- 
ten, as  Lightfoot  has  it,  "among  Jews,  by  Jews, for 
Jews,"  cannot  but  speak  the  language  of  the  time, 
both  as  to  form  and,  broadly  speaking,  as  to  con- 
tents. There  are  many  more  vital  points  of  contact 
between  the  New  Testament  and  the  Talmud  than 
divines  yet  seem  fully  to  realize ;  for  such  terms  as 
"Redemption,"  "Baptism,"  "Grace,"  "Faith," 
"Salvation,"  "Regeneration,"  "Son  of  Man," 
"Son  of  God,"  "Kingdom  of  Heaven,"  were  not, 
as  we  are  apt  to  think,  invented  by  Christianity, 
but  were  household  words  of  Talmudical  Judaism. 
No  less  loud  and  bitter  in  the  Talmud  are  the  pro- 
test against  "  lip-serving,"  against  "  making  the  law 
a  burden  to  the  people,"  against  "laws  that  hang 
on  hairs,"  against  "  Priests  and  Pharisees."  The 
fundamental  mysteries  of  the  new  Faith  are  mat- 
ters totally  apart  ;  but  the  Ethics  in  both  are,  in 
their  broad  outlines,  identical.  That  grand  dictum, 
"Do  unto  others  as  thou  wouldst  be  done  by," 
against  which  Kant  declared  himself  energetically 
from  a  philosophical  point  of  view,  is  quoted  by 
Hillel,  the  President,  at  whose  death  Jesus  was  ten 
years  of  age,  not  as  anything  new,  but  as  an  old 
and  well-known  dictum  "that  comprised  the  whole 
Law."  The  most  monstrous  mistake  has  ever  been 
our  mixing  up,  in  the  first  instance,  single  indi- 
viduals, or  classes,  with  a  whole  people,  and  next 
our  confounding  the  Judaism  of  the  time  of  Christ 
with  that  of  the  time  of  the  Wilderness,  of  the 
Judges,  or   even  of   Abraham,   Isaac,  and  Jacob. 


40  THE    TALMUD 

The  Judaism  of  the  time  of  Christ  (to  which  that 
of  our  days,  owing  principally  to  the  Talmud,  stands 
very  near),  and  that  of  the  Pentateuch,  are  as  like 
each  other  as  our  England  is  like  that  of  William 
Rufus,  or  the  Greece  of  Plato  that  of  the  Argon- 
auts. It  is  the  glory  of  Christianity  to  have  car- 
ried those  golden  germs,  hidden  in  the  schools  and 
among  the  "  silent  community  "  of  the  learned,  into 
the  market  of  Humanity.  It  has  communicated 
that  "  Kingdom  of  Heaven,"  of  which  the  Talmud 
is  full  from  the  first  page  to  the  last,  to  the  herd, 
even  to  the  lepers.  The  fruits  that  have  sprung 
from  this  through  the  wide  world  we  need  not  here 
consider.  But  the  misconception,  as  if  to  a  God  of 
Vengeance  had  suddenly  succeeded  a  God  of  Love, 
cannot  be  too  often  protested  against.  "  Thou  shalt 
love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself"  is  a  precept  of  the 
Old  Testament,  as  Christ  himself  taught  his  disci- 
ples. The  "  Law,"  as  we  have  seen  and  shall  fur- 
ther see,  was  developed  to  a  marvellously  and  per- 
haps oppressively  minute  pitch  ;  but  only  as  a 
regulator  of  outward  actions.  The  "faith  of  the 
heart " — the  dogma  prominently  dwelt  upon  by 
Paul — was  a  thing  that  stood  much  higher  with  the 
Pharisees  than  this  outward  law.  It  was  a  thing, 
they  said,  not  to  be  commanded  by  any  ordinance : 
yet  was  greater  than  all.  "  Everything,"  is  one  of 
their  adages,  "is  in  the  hands  of  Heaven,  save  the 
fear  of  Heaven." 

"  Six  hundred  and  thirteen  injunctions,"  says  the  Talmud, 
"  was  Moses  instructed  to  give  to  the  people.  David  reduced 
them  all  to  eleven,  in  tlie  fifteenth  Psalm  :      Lord,  who  shall 


THE    TALMUD  4I 

abide  in  Thy  tabernacle,  who  shall  dwell  on  Thy  holy  hill  ? 
He  that  walketh  uprightly,  etc. 

"The  Prophet  Isaiah  reduced  them  to  six  (xxxiii.  15)  : — 
He  that  walketh  righteously,  etc. 

"  The  Prophet  Micah  reduced  them  to  three  (vi.  8) :— What 
doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee  but  to  do  justly,  and  to  love 
mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy  God .'' 

"  Isaiah  once  more  reduced  them  to  two  (Ivi.  i) : — Keep  ye 
judgment  and  do  justice. 

"  Amos  (v.  4)  reduced  them  all  to  one:— Seek  ye  me  and 
ye  shall  live. 

"But  lest  it  might  be  supposed  from  this  that  God  could 
be  found  in  the  fulfilment  of  his  own  law  only,  Habakkuk 
said  (ii.  4) :  The  just  shall  live  by  his  Faith." 

Regarding  these  "  Pharisees  "  or  "  Separatists  " 
themselves,  no  greater  or  more  antiquated  mistake 
exists  than  that  of  their  being  a  mere  "sect"  hated 
by  Christ  and  the  Apostles.  They  were  not  a  sect, 
— any  more  than  Roman  Catholics  form  a  "sect" 
in  Rome,  or  Protestants  a  "  sect "  in  England, — • 
and  they  were  not  hated  so  indiscriminately  by 
Christ  and  the  Apostles  as  would  at  first  sight 
appear  from  some  sweeping  passages  in  the  New 
Testament.  For  the  "Pharisees,"  as  such,  were  at 
that  time — Josephus  notwithstanding — simply  the 
people,  in  contradistinction  to  the  "leaven  of 
Herod."  Those  "upper  classes"  of  free-thinking 
Sadducees  who,  in  opposition  to  the  Pharisees, 
insisted  on  the  paramount  importance  of  sacrifices 
and  tithes,  of  which  they  were  the  receivers,  but 
denied  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul,  are  barely 
mentioned  in  the  New  Testament.  The  wholesale 
denunciations  of  "  Scribes  and  Pharisees "  have 
been  greatly  misunderstood.     There  can  be  abso- 


42  THE   TALMUD 

lutcly  no  question  on  this  point,  tliat  there  were 
among  the  genuine  Pharisees  the  most  patriotic, 
the  most  noble-minded,  the  most  advanced  leaders 
of  the  Party  of  Progress,  The  development  of  the 
Law  itself  was  nothing  in  their  hands  but  a  means 
to  keep  the  Spirit  as  opposed  to  the  Word — the 
outward  frame — in  full  life  and  flame,  and  to  vindi- 
cate for  each  time  its  own  right  to  interpret  the 
temporal  ordinances  according  to  its  own  necessi- 
ties and  requirements.  But  that  there  were  very 
many  black  sheep  in  their  flock — many  who  traded 
on  the  high  reputation  of  the  whole  body^is  mat- 
ter of  reiterated  denunciation  in  the  whole  con- 
temporary literature.  The  Talmud  inveighs  even 
more  bitterly  and  caustically  than  the  New  Testa- 
ment against  what  it  calls  the  "  Plague  of  Pharisa- 
ism," "the  dyed  ones,"  "who  do  evil  deeds  like 
Zimri,  and  require  a  goodly  reward  like  Phinehas," 
"they  who  preach  beautifully,  but  do  not  act  beau- 
tifully." Parodying  their  exaggerated  logical  ar- 
rangements, their  scrupulous  divisions  and  sub- 
divisions, the  Talmud  distinguishes  seven  classes 
of  Pharisees,  one  of  whom  only  is  worthy  of  that 
name.  These  are — i,  those  who  do  the  will  of  God 
from  earthly  motives ;  2,  they  who  make  small 
steps,  or  say,  just  wait  a  while  for  me ;  I  have  just 
one  more  good  work  to  perform  ;  3,  they  who  knock 
their  heads  against  walls  in  avoiding  the  sight  of  a 
woman  ;  4,  saints  in  office ;  5,  they  who  implore 
you  to  mention  some  more  duties  which  they 
might  perform ;  6,  they  who  are  pious  because 
they  fear  God.     The  real  and  only  Pharisee  is  he 


THE   TALMUD  43 

"who  does  the  will  of  his  father  which  is  in  Heaven 
because  he  loves  Him.''  Among  those  chiefly 
"Pharisaic"  masters  of  the  Mishnic  period,  whose 
names  and  fragments  of  whose  lives  have  come 
down  to  us,  are  some  of  the  most  illustrious  men, 
men  at  whose  feet  the  first  Christians  sat,  whose 
sayings — household  words  in  the  mouths  of  the 
people — prove  them  to  have  been  endowed  with 
no  common  wisdom,  piety,  kindness,  and  high  and 
noble  courage  :  a  courage  and  a  piety  they  had 
often  enough  occasion  to  seal  with  their  lives. 

From  this  hasty  outline  of  the  mental  atmos- 
phere of  the  time  when  the  Mishnah  was  gradu- 
ally built  up,  we  now  turn  to  this  Code  itself.  The 
bulk,  of  ordinances,  injunctions,  prohibitions,  pre- 
cepts,— the  old  and  new,  traditional,  derived,  or 
enacted  on  the  spur  of  the  moment, — had,  after 
about  eight  hundred  years,  risen  to  gigantic  pro- 
portions, proportions  no  longer  to  be  mastered  in 
their  scattered,  and  be  it  remembered,  chiefly 
unwritten,  form.  Thrice,  at  different  periods,  the 
work  of  reducing  them  to  system  and  order  was 
undertaken  by  three  eminent  masters ;  the  third 
alone  succeeded.  First  by  Hillel  I.,  under  whose 
presidency  Christ  was  born.  This  Hillel,  also 
called  the  second  Ezra,  was  born  in  Babylon. 
Thirst  for  knowledge  drove  him  to  Jerusalem. 
He  was  so  poor,  the  legend  tells  us,  that  once, 
when  he  had  not  money  enough  to  fee  the  porter 
of  the  academy,  he  climbed  up  the  window-sill  one 
bitter  winter's  night.  As  he  lay  there  listening, 
the  cold  gradually  made  him  insensible,  and  the 


44  THE    TALMUD 

snow  covered  him  up.  The  darkness  of  the  room 
first  called  the  attention  of  those  inside  to  the 
motionless  form  without.  He  was  restored  to  life. 
Be  it  observed,  by  the  way,  that  this  was  on  a  Sab- 
bath, as,  according  to  the  Talmud,  danger  always 
supersedes  the  Sabbath.  Even  for  the  sake  of  the 
tiniest  babe  it  must  be  broken  without  the  slightest 
hesitation,  "for  the  babe  will,"  it  is  added,  "keep 
many  a  Sabbath  yet  for  that  one  that  was  broken 
for  it." 

And  here  we  cannot  refrain  from  entering  an 
emphatic  protest  against  the  vulgar  notion  of  the 
"Jewish  Sabbath"  being  a  thing  of  grim  austerity. 
It  was  precisely  the  contrary,  a  "day  of  joy  and 
delight,"  a  "feast-day,"  honored  by  fine  garments, 
by  the  best  cheer,  by  wine,  lights,  spice,  and  other 
joys  of  pre-eminently  bodily  import :  and  the  high- 
est expression  of  the  feeling  of  self-reliance  and 
independence  is  contained  in  the  adage,  "  Rather 
live  on  your  Sabbath  as  you  would  on  a  week-day, 
than  be  dependent  on  others."  But  this  only  by 
the  way. 

About  30  B.C.  Hillel  became  President.  Of  his 
meekness,  his  piety,  his  benevolence,  the  Talmudi- 
cal  records  are  full.  A  few  of  his  sayings  will 
characterize  him  better  than  any  sketch  of  ours 
could  do.  "  Be  a  disciple  of  Aaron,  a  friend  of 
peace,  a  promoter  of  peace,  a  friend  of  all  men, 
and  draw  them  near  unto  the  law."  "  Do  not 
believe  in  thyself  till  the  day  of  thy  death."  "Do 
not  judge  thy  neighbor  until  thou  hast  stood  in 
his   place."      "Whosoever   does    not    increase   in 


THE    TALMUD  45 

knowledge  decreases."  "Whosoever  tries  to  make 
gain  by  the  crown  of  learning  perishes."  Imme- 
diately after  the  lecture  he  used  to  hurry  home. 
Once  asked  by  his  disciples  what  caused  him  to 
hasten  away,  he  replied  he  had  to  look  after  his 
guest.  When  they  pressed  him  for  the  name  of 
his  guest,  he  said  that  he  meant  his  soul,  which 
was  here  to-day  and  there  to-morrow.  One  day  a 
heathen  went  to  Shammai,  the  head  of  the  rival 
academy,  and  asked  him  mockingly  to  convert  him 
to  the  law  while  he  stood  on  one  leg.  The  irate 
master  turned  him  from  his  door.  He  then  went 
to  Hillel,  who  received  him  kindly  and  gave  him 
that  reply — since  so  widely  propagated — "Do  not 
unto  another  what  thou  wouldst  not  have  another 
do  unto  thee.  This  is  the  whole  Law,  the  rest  is 
mere  commentary."  Very  characteristic  is  also 
his  answer  to  one  of  those  "wits"  who  used  to 
plague  him  with  their  silly  questions.  "  How  many 
laws  are  there  .'' "  he  asked  Hillel.  "Two,"  Hillel 
replied,  "one  written  and  one  oral."  Whereupon 
the  other,  "  I  believe  in  the  first,  but  I  do  not  see 
why  I  should  believe  in  the  second."  "  Sit  down," 
Hillel  said.  And  he  wrote  down  the  Hebrew  al- 
phabet. "  What  letter  is  this  .'' "  he  then  asked, 
pointing  to  the  first.  "This  is  an  Aleph."  "Good, 
the  next.?"  "Beth."  "  Good  again.  But  how  do 
you  know  that  this  is  an  Aleph  and  this  a  Beth .''  " 
"Thus,"  the  other  replied,  "we  have  learnt  from 
our  ancestors."  "Well,"  Hillel  said,  "as  you  have 
accepted  this  in  good  faith,  accept  also  the  other." 
To  his  mind  the  necessity  of  arranging  and  simpli- 


46  THE    TALMUD 

fying  that  monstrous  bulk  of  oral  traditions  seems 
to  have  presented  itself  first  with  all  its  force. 
There  were  no  less  than  some  six  hundred  vaguely 
floating  sections  of  it  in  existence  by  that  time. 
He  tried  to  reduce  them  to  six.  But  he  died,  and 
the  work  commenced  by  him  was  left  untouched 
for  another  century.  Akiba,  the  poor  shepherd 
who  fell  in  love  with  the  daughter  of  the  richest 
and  proudest  man  in  all  Jerusalem,  and  through  his 
love,  from  a  clown  became  one  of  the  most  eminent 
doctors  of  his  generation,  nay,  "a  second  Moses," 
came  next.  But  he  too  was  unsuccessful.  His 
legal  labors  were  cut  short  by  the  Roman  execu- 
tioner. Yet  the  day  of  his  martyrdom  is  said  to 
have  been  the  day  of  the  birth  of  him  who,  at  last, 
did  carry  out  the  work,  — Jehuda,  the  Saint,  also 
called  "  Rabbi  "  by  way  of  eminence.  About  200 
A.D.,  the  redaction  of  the  whole  unwritten  law  into 
a  code,  though  still  unwritten,  was  completed  after 
the  immense  efforts,  not  of  one  school,  but  of  all, 
not  through  one,  but  many  methods  of  collection, 
comparison,  and  condensation. 

When  the  code  was  drawn  up,  it  was  already  ob- 
solete in  many  of  its  parts.  More  than  a  genera- 
tion before  the  Destruction  of  the  Temple,  Rome 
had  taken  the  penal  jurisdiction  from  the  Sanhe- 
drin.  The  innumerable  injunctions  regarding  the 
temple-service,  the  sacrifices,  and  the  rest,  had  but 
an  ideal  value.  The  agrarian  laws  for  the  most 
part  applied  only  to  Palestine,  and  but  an  insignifi- 
cant fraction  of  the  people  had  remained  faithful 
to  the  desecrated  land.     Nevertheless  the  whole 


THE    TALMUD  47 

Code  was  eagerly  received  as  their  text-book  by 
the  many  academies  both  in  Palestine  and  in  Baby- 
lonia, not  merely  as  a  record  of  past  enactments, 
but  as  laws  that  at  some  time  or  other,  with  the 
restoration  of  the  commonwealth,  would  come  into 
full  practice  as  of  yore. 

The  Mishnah  is  divided  into  six  sections.  These 
are  subdivided  again  into  ii,  12,  7,  9  (or  10),  11, 
and  12  chapters  respectively,  which  are  further 
broken  up  into  524  paragraphs.  We  shall  briefly 
describe  their  contents: 

"Section  I.,  Seeds:  of  Agrarian  Laws,  commencing  with 
a  chapter  on  Prayers.  In  this  section  the  various  tithes  and 
donations  due  to  the  Priests,  the  Levites,  and  the  poor,  from 
the  products  of  the  lands,  and  further  the  Sabbatical  year, 
and  the  prohibited  mixtures  in  plants,  animals,  and  garments, 
are  treated  of. 

"Section  II.,  Feasts:  of  Sabbaths,  Feast  and  Fast  days, 
the  work  prohibited,  the  ceremonies  ordained,  the  sacrifices 
to  be  offered,  on  them.  Special  chapters  are  devoted  to  the 
Feast  of  the  Exodus  from  Egypt,  to  tlie  New  Year's  Day, 
to  the  Day  of  Atonement  (one  of  the  most  impressive  por- 
tions of  the  whole  book),  to  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  and 
to  that  of  Haman. 

"Section  III.,  IVomen :  of  betrothal,  marriage,  divorce, 
etc.;  also  of  vows.  • 

"Section  IV,  Damages:  including  a  great  part  of  the 
civil  and  criminal  law.  It  treats  of  the  law  of  trover,  of 
buying  and  selling,  and  the  ordinary  monetary  transactions. 
Further,  of  the  greatest  crime  known  to  the  law,  viz.,  idol- 
atry. Next  of  witnesses,  of  oaths,  of  legal  punishments,  and 
of  the  Sanhedrin  itself.  This  section  concludes  with  the  so- 
called  '  Sentences  of  the  Fathers,'  -containing  some  of  the 
subUmest  ethical  dicta  known  in  the  history  of  religious  phi- 
losophy. 

"Section  V.,  Sacred  Things  :  of  sacrifices,  the  first-born, 
etc.;  also  of  the  measurements  of  the  Temple  (Middoth). 


48  THE    TALMUD 

^'StcXAOnW.,  Pin-ifuaiions :  of  the  various  levitical  and 
other  hygienic  laws,  of  impure  things  and  persons,  their  puri- 
fication, etc." 

There  is,  it  cannot  be  denied,  more  symmetry 
and  method  in  the  Mishnah  than  in  the  Pandects ; 
although  we  have  not  found  that  minute  logical 
sequence  in  its  arrangement  which  Maimonides  and 
others  have  discovered.  In  fact,  we  do  not  believe 
that  we  have  it  in  its  original  shape.  But,  as  far  as 
the  single  treatises  are  concerned,  the  Mishnah  is 
for  the  most  part  free  from  the  blemishes  of  the 
Roman  Code.  There  are,  unquestionably,  fewer 
contradictory  laws,  fewer  repetitions,  fewer  inter- 
polations, than  in  the  Digests,  which,  notwithstand- 
ing Tribonian's  efforts,  abound  with  so-called 
"  Geminationes,"  "Leges  fugitivas,"  "errativae," 
and  so  forth  ;  and,  as  regards  a  certain  outspoken- 
ness in  bodily  things,  it  has  at  last  been  acknowl- 
edged by  all  competent  authorities  that  its  language 
is  infinitely  purer  than  that,  for  instance,  of  the 
medieval  casuists. 

The  regulations  contained  in  these  six  treatises 
are  of  very  different  kinds.  They  are  apparently 
important  and  unimportant,  intended  to  be  perma- 
nent or  temporary.  They  are  either  clear  expan- 
sions of  Scriptural  precepts,  or  independent  tradi- 
tions, linked  to  Scripture  only  hermeneutically. 
They  are  "decisions,"  "fences,"  "injunctions," 
"ordinances,"  or  sirnply  "Mosaic  Halachah  from 
Sinai" — much  as  the  Roman  laws  consist  of 
"Senatusconsulta,"  "  Plebiscita,"  "  Edicta,"  "  Res- 
ponsa  Prudentium,"  and  the  rest.     Save  in  points 


THE    TALMUD  49 

of  dispute,  the  Mishnah  does  not  say  when  and 
how  a  special  law  was  made.  Only  exceptionally 
do  we  read  the  introductory  formula  "N.  N.  has 
borne  witness,"  "  I  have  heard  from  N.  N.,"  etc.; 
for  nothing  was  admitted  into  the  Code  but  that 
which  was  well  authenticated  first.  There  is  no 
difference  made  between  great  laws  and  little  laws — 
between  ancient  and  new  Halachah.  Every  pre- 
cept traditionally  received  or  passed  by  the  major- 
ity becomes,  in  a  manner,  a  religious,  divinely  sanc- 
tioned one,  although  it  was  always  open  to  the 
subsequent  authorities  to  reconsider  and  to  abro- 
gate ;  as,  indeed,  one  of  the  chief  reasons  against  the 
writing  down  of  the  Code,  even  after  its  redaction 
was  just  this,  that  it  should  never  become  fixed  and 
immutable.  That  the  Mishnah  was  appealed  to  for 
all  practical  purposes,  in  preference  to  the  "  Mosaic  " 
law,  seems  clear  and  natural.  Do  we  generally 
appeal  in  our  law-courts  to  the  Magna  Charta .'' 

This  uniform  reverence  for  all  the  manifold  con- 
tents of  the  Mishnah  is  best  expressed  in  the 
redactor's  own  words — the  motto  to  the  whole  col- 
lection— "  Be  equally  conscientious  in  small  as  in 
great  precepts,  for  ye  know  not  their  individual 
rewards.  Compute  the  earthly  loss  sustained  by 
the  fulfilment  of  a  law  by  the  heavenly  reward 
derived  through  it ;  and  the  gain  derived  from  a 
transgression  by  the  punishment  that  is  to  follow 
it.  Also  contemplate  three  things,  and  ye  shall 
not  fall  into  sin  :  Know  what  is  above  ye — an  eye 
that  seeth,  an  ear  that  heareth,  and  all  your  works 
are  written  in  a  book." 


50  THE    TALMUD 

The  tone  and  tenor  of  the  Mishnah  is,  except  in 
the  one  special  division  devoted  to  Ethics,  emphati- 
cally practical.  It  does  not  concern  itself  with 
Metaphysics,  but  aims  at  being  merely  a  civil  code. 
Yet  it  never  misses  an  opportunity  of  inculcating 
those  higher  ethical  principles  which  lie  beyond  the 
strict  letter  of  the  law.  It  looks  more  to  the  "in- 
tention "  in  the  fulfilment  of  a  precept  than  to  the 
fulfilment  itself.  He  who  claims  certain  advantages 
by  the  letter  of  the  law,  though  the  spirit  of 
humanity  should  urge  him  not  to  insist  upon  them, 
is  not  "beloved  by  God  and  man."  On  the  other 
hand,  he  who  makes  good  by  his  own  free  will 
demands  which  the  law  could  not  have  enforced  ; 
he,  in  fact,  who  does  not  stop  short  at  the  "  Gate  of 
Justice,"  but  proceeds  within  the  "line  of  mercy," 
in  him  the  "spirit  of  the  wise"  has  pleasure.  Cer- 
tain duties  bring  fruits  (interest)  in  this  world  ;  but 
the  real  reward,  the  "  capital,"  is  paid  back  in  the 
world  to  come :  such  as  reverence  for  father  and 
mother,  charity,  early  application  to  study,  hospi- 
tality, doing  the  last  honor  to  the  dead,  promoting 
peace  between  man  and  his  neighbor.  The  Mish- 
nah knows  nothing  of  "  Hell."  For  all  and  any 
transgressions  there  were  only  the  fixed  legal  pun- 
ishments, or  a  mysterious  sudden  "visitation  of 
God" — the  scriptural  "rooting  out."  Death  atones 
for  all  sins.  Minor  transgressions  are  redeemed  by 
repentance,  charity,  sacrifice,  and  the  day  of  atone- 
ment. Sins  committed  against  man  are  only  for- 
given when  the  injured  man  has  had  full  amends 
made  and  declares  himself  reconciled.     The  high- 


THE    TALMUD  5 1 

est  virtue  lies  in  the  study  of  the  law.  It  is  not 
only  the  badge  of  high  culture  (as  was  of  old  the 
case  in  England),  but  there  is  a  special  merit  bound 
up  in  it  that  will  assist  man  both  in  this  and  in  the 
world  to  come.  Even  a  bastard  who  is  learned  in 
it  is  more  honored  than  a  high-priest  who  is  not. 

To  discuss  these  laws,  their  spirit,  and  their  de- 
tails, in  this  place,  we  cannot  undertake.  But  this 
much  we  may  say,  that  it  has  always  been  the  unani- 
mous opinion  of  both  friends  and  foes  that  their 
general  character  is  humane  in  the  extreme :  in 
spite  of  certain  harsh  and  exceptional  laws,  issued 
in  times  of  danger  and  misery,  of  revolution  and 
reaction ;  laws,  moreover,  which  for  the  most  part 
never  were  and  never  could  be  carried  into  practice. 
There  is  an  almost  modern  liberality  of  view  re- 
garding the  "fulfilment  of  the  Law"  itself,  ex- 
pressed by  such  frequent  adages  as  "The  Scripture 
says  :  '  he  shall  live  by  them  ' — that  means,  he 
shall  not  die  throicgh  tJic7Ji.  They  shall  not  be 
made  pitfalls  or  burdens  to  him,  that  shall  make 
him  hate  life.'  '  He  who  carries  out  these  precepts 
to  the  full  is  declared  to  be  nothing  less  than  a 
Saint.'"  "The  law  has  been  given  to  men,  and 
not  to  angels." 

Respecting  the  practical  administration  of  jus- 
tice, a  sharp  distinction  is  drawn  by  the  Mishnah 
between  the  civil  and  criminal  law.  In  both  the 
most  careful  investigation  and  scrutiny  is  required  ; 
but  while  in  the  former  three  judges  are  compe- 
tent, a  tribunal  of  no  less  than  twenty-three  is  re- 
quired for  the  latter.     The  first  duty  of  the  civil 


52  THE    TALMUD 

judges  is  always — however  clear  the  case — to  urge 
an  agreement.  "When,"  says  the  Talmud,  "do 
justice  and  goodwill  meet  ?  When  the  contending 
parties  are  made  to  agree  peaceably."  There  were 
both  special  local  magistrates  and  casual  "justices 
of  peace,"  chosen  ad  hoc  by  the  parties.  Payment 
received  for  a  decision  annuls  the  decision.  Loss 
of  time  only  was  allowed  to  be  made  good  in  case 
of  tradesmen-judges.  The  plaintiff,  if  proved  to 
have  asked  more  than  his  due,  with  a  view  of  thus 
obtaining  his  due  more  readily,  was  nonsuited. 
Three  partners  in  an  action  must  not  divide  them- 
selves into  one  plaintiff  and  two  witnesses.  The 
Judge  must  see  that  both  parties  are  pretty  equally 
dressed,  i.e.,  not  one  in  fine  garments,  the  others  in 
rags  ;  and  he  is  further  particularly  cautioned  not 
to  be  biassed  in  favor  of  the  poor  against  the  rich. 
The  Judge  must  not  hear  anything  of  the  case, 
save  in  the  presence  of  both  parties.  Many  and 
striking  are  also  the  admonitions  regarding  the 
Judge.  "  He  who  unjustly  hands  over  one  man's 
goods  to  another,  he  shall  pay  God  for  it  with  his 
own  soul."  "In  the  hour  when  the  Judge  sits  in 
judgment  over  his  fellow-men,  he  shall  feel,  as  it 
were,  a  sword  pointed  at  his  own  heart."  "Woe 
unto  the  Judge  who,  convinced  in  his  mind  of  the 
unrighteousness  of  a  cause,  tries  to  throw  the 
blame  on  the  witnesses.  From  hi)n  God  will  ask 
an  account."  "  When  the  parties  stand  before 
you,  look  upon  both  as  guilty  ;  but  when  they  are 
dismissed,  let  them  both  be  innocent  in  thine  eyes, 
for  the  decree  has  crone  forth." 


THE    TALMUD  53 

It  would  not  be  easy  to  find  a  more  humane,  al- 
most refined,  penal  legislation,  from  the  days  of 
the  old  world  to  our  own.  While  in  civil  cases — 
whenever  larger  tribunals  (juries)  had  to  be  called 
in — a  majority  of  one  is  sufBcient  for  either  ac- 
quittal or  condemnation  ;  in  criminal  cases  a  ma- 
jority of  one  acquits,  but  a  majority  of  two  is  re- 
quisite for  condemnation.  All  men  are  accepted 
in  the  former  as  witnesses — always  except  gamblers 
(xuiSsta — dice-players),  betting-men  ("  pigeon-fly- 
ers"), usurers,  dealers  in  illegal  (seventh  year's) 
produce,  and  slaves,  who  were  disqualified  from 
"judging  and  bearing  witness" — either  for  the 
plaintiff  or  the  defendant ;  but  it  is  only  for  the 
defence  that  everybody,  indiscriminately,  is  heard 
in  criminal  cases.  The  cross-examination  of  the 
witnesses  was  exceedingly  strict.  The  formula 
(containing  at  once  a  whole  breviary  for  the  Judge 
himself),  with  which  the  witnesses  were  admon- 
ished in  criminal  cases  was  of  so  awful  and  strik- 
ing a  nature,  that  "  swearing  a  man's  life  away " 
became  an  almost  unheard-of  occurrence  : — 

"  How  is  one,"  says  the  Mishnah,  "to  awe  the  witnesses 
who  are  called  to  testify  in  matters  of  life  and  death  ?  When 
they  are  brought  into  Court,  they  are  charged  thus :  Per- 
chance you  would  speak  from  conjecture  or  rumor,  as  a 
witness  from  another  witness — having  heard  it  from  '  some 
trustworthy  man ' — or  perchance  you  are  not  aware  that 
we  shall  proceed  to  search  and  to  try  you  with  close  ques- 
tions and  searching  scrutiny.  Know  ye  that  not  like  trials 
about  money  are  trials  over  life  and  death.  In  trials  of 
money  a  man  may  redeem  his  guilt  by  money,  and  he 
may  be  forgiven.  In  trials  of  life,  the  blood  not  only  of 
him  who  has  been  falsely   condemned  will  hang   over  the 


54  THE    TALMUD 

false  witness,  but  also  that  of  the  seed  of  his  seed,  even 
unto  the  end  of  the  world  ;  for  tlius  we  find  that  when 
Cain  killed  his  brother,  it  is  said,  '  The  voice  of  thy 
brother's  blood  is  crying  to  me  from  the  ground.'  The  word 
blood  stands  there  in  the  plural  number,  to  indicate  to  you 
that  the  blood  of  him,  together  with  that  of  his  seed,  has 
been  shed.  Adam  was  created  alone,  to  show  you  that  he 
who  destroys  one  single  life  will  be  called  to  account  for  it, 

as  if  he  had  destroyed  a  whole  world But,  on  the 

other  hand,  ye  might  say  to  yourselves.  What  have  we  to  do 
with  all  this  misery  here  ?  Remember,  then,  that  Holy  Writ 
has  said  (Lev.  v.  i),  '  If  a  witness  hath  seen  or  known,  if  he 
do  not  utter,  he  shall  bear  his  iniquity.'  But  perchance  ye 
might  say.  Why  shall  we  be  guilty  of  this  man's  blood? 
Remember,  then,  what  is  said  in  Proverbs  (xi.  lo),  '  In  the 
destruction  of  the  wicked  there  is  joy.'  " 

The  "  Lex  Talionis  "  is  unknown  to  the  Talmud. 
Paying  "measure  for  measure,"  it  says,  "is  in 
God's  hand  only."  Bodily  injuries  inflicted  are  to 
be  redeemed  by  money  ;  and  here  again  the  Phari- 
sees had  carried  the  day  against  the  Sadducees, 
who  insisted  upon  the  literal  interpretation  of  the 
"eye  for  eye."  The  extreme  punishments,  "flagel- 
lation" and  "death,"  as  ordained  in  the  Mosaic 
Code,  were  inflicted  in  a  humane  manner  unknown, 
as  we  have  said,  not  only  to  the  contemporary 
courts  of  antiquity,  but  even  to  those  of  Europe  up 
to  within  the  last  generation.  Thirty-nine  was  the 
utmost  number  of  strokes  to  be  inflicted  :  but — the 
"loving  one's  neighbor  like  oneself"  being  con- 
stantly urged  by  the  Penal  Code  itself,  even  with 
regard  to  criminals — if  the  life  of  the  culprit  was 
in  the  least  degree  endangered  this  number  was  at 
once  reduced.  However  numerous  the  delin- 
quent's transgressions,  but  one  punishment   could 


THE    TALMUD  55 

be  decreed  for  them  all.  Not  even  a  fine  and 
flagellation  could  be  pronounced  on  the  same  occa- 
sion. 

The  care  taken  of  human  life  was  extreme  indeed. 
The  judges  of  capital  offences  had  to  fast  all  day, 
nor  was  the  sentence  executed  on  the  day  of  the 
verdict,  but  it  was  once  more  subjected  to  scrutiny 
by  the  Sanhedrin  the  next  day.  Even  to  the  last 
some  favorable  circumstance  that  might  turn  the 
scale  in  the  prisoner's  favor  was  looked  for.  The 
place  of  execution  was  at  some  distance  from  the 
Court,  in  order  that  time  might  be  given  to  a  wit- 
ness or  the  accused  himself  for  naming  any  fresh 
fact  in  his  favor.  A  man  was  stationed  at  the  en- 
trance to  the  Court,  with  a  flag  in  his  hand,  and  at 
some  distance  another  man,  on  horseback,  was 
stationed,  in  order  to  stop  the  execution  instantly 
if  any  favorable  circumstance  should  still  come  to 
light.  The  culprit  himself  was  allowed  to  stop  four 
or  five  times,  and  to  be  brought  back  before  the 
judges,  if  he  had  still  something  to  urge  in  his  de- 
fence. Before  him  marched  a  herald,  crying,  "  The 
man  N.  N.,  son  of  N.  N.,  is  being  led  to  execution 
for  having  committed  such  and  such  a  crime ;  such 
and  such  are  the  witnesses  against  him  ;  whosoever 
knows  aught  to  his  favor,  let  him  come  and  pro- 
claim it."  Ten  yards  from  the  place  of  execution 
they  said  to  him,  "  Confess  thy  sins  ;  every  one  who 
confesses  has  part  in  the  world  to  come ;  for  thus 
it  is  written  of  Achan,  to  whom  Joshua  said.  My 
son,  give  now  glory  to  the  God  of  Israel."  If  he 
"could  not"  offer  any  formal  confession,  he  need 


$6  THE    TALMUD 

only  say,  "  May^my  death  be  a  redemption  for  all 
my  sins."  To  the  last  the  culprit  was  supported 
by  marks  of  profound  and  awful  sympathy.  The 
ladies  of  Jerusalem  formed  a  society  which  provided 
a  beverage  of  mixed  myrrh  and  vinegar,  that,  like 
an  opiate,  benumbed  the  man  when  he  was  being 
carried  to  execution. 

There  were  four  kinds  of  capital  punishment, — 
stoning,  burning,  slaying  with  the  sword,  and 
strangling.  Crucifixion  is  utterly  unknown  to 
the  Jewish  law.  "The  house  of  stoning"  was  two 
stories  high,  "  stoning "  in  the  Mishnah  being 
merely  a  term  for  breaking  the  culprit's  neck.  It 
was  the  part  of  the  chief  witness  to  precipitate  the 
criminal  with  his  own  hand.  If  he  fell  on  his 
breast  he  was  turned  on  his  back ;  if  the  fall  had 
not  killed  him  on  the  spot,  the  second  witness  had 
to  cast  a  stone  on  his  heart  ;  if  he  still  survived, 
then  and  then  only,  the  whole  people  hastened  his 
death  by  casting  stones  upon  him.  The  modes  of 
strangling  and  burning  were  almost  identical :  in 
both  cases  the  culprit  was  immersed  to  his  waist 
in  soft  mud,  and  two  men  by  tightening  a  cord 
wrapped  in  a  soft  cloth  round  his  neck,  caused 
instantaneous  suffocation.  In  the  "Uurning"  a 
lighted  wick  was  thrown  down  his  throat  when  he 
opened  his  mouth  at  his  last  breath.  The  corpse 
was  buried  in  a  special  place  appropriated  to 
criminals.  After  a  time,  however,  the  bones  were 
gathered  together  and  transferred  to  the  burial- 
place  of  the  culprit's  kin.  The  relations  then 
visited  the  judges  and  the  witnesses,  "as  much  as 


THE    TALMUD  57 

to  say,  we  bear  no  malice  against  you,  for  a 
righteous  judgment  have  ye  judged."  The  ordi- 
nary ceremonies  of  outer  mourning  were  not 
observed  in  such  cases,  but  lamentation  was  not 
prohibited  during  the  first  period  of  grief — "  for 
sorrow  is  from  the  heart."  There  was  no  confisca- 
tion of  the  culprit's  goods. 

Practically,  capital  punishment  was  abrogated 
even  before  the  Romans  had  taken  it  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  Sanhedrin.  Here  again  the  human- 
izing influences  of  the  "Traditions"  had  been  at 
work,  commuting  the  severe  Mosaic  Code.  The 
examination  of  witnesses  had  been  made  so  rigor- 
ous that  a  sentence  of  capital  punishment  became 
almost  impossible.  When  the  guilt  had,  notwith- 
standing all  these  difficulties,  been  absolutely 
brought  home,  some  formal  flaw  was  sure  to  be 
found,  and  the  sentence  was  commuted  to  impri- 
sonment for  life.  The  doctors  of  a  later  period, 
notably  Akiba,  who,  in  the  midst  of  his  revolu- 
tionary dreams  of  a  new  Independence,  kept  his 
eye  steadily  on  a  reform  of  the  whole  jurisdiction, 
did  not  hesitate  to  pronounce  openly  for  the  aboli- 
tion of  capital  punishment.  A  Court  which  had 
pronounced  one  sentence  of  death  in  seven,  or 
even  seventy  years,  received  the  name  of  "  Court 
of  Murderers." 

So  far  the  Mishnah,  that  brief  abstract  of  about 
eight  hundred  years'  legal  production.  Jehudah,  the 
"  Redactor,"  had  excluded  all  but  the  best  authen- 
ticated traditions,  as  well  as  all  discussion  and  exe- 
gesis, unless   where   particularly  necessary.     The 


58  THE    TALMUD 

vast  mass  of  these  materials  was  now  also  collected, 
as  a  sort  of  apocryphal  oral  code.  We  have,  dating 
from  a  few  generations  after  the  redaction  of  the 
official  Mishnah,  a  so-called  external  Mishnah  (Bo- 
raita) ;  further  the  discussions  and  additions  be- 
longing by  rights  to  the  Mishnah,  called  Tosefta 
(Supplement) ;  and,  finally,  the  exegesis  and  meth- 
odology of  the  Halachah  (Sifri,  Sifra,  Mechilta), 
much  of  which  was  afterwards  embodied  in  the 
Talmud. 

The  Mishnah,  being  formed  into  a  code,  became 
in  its  turn  what  the  Scripture  had  been,  a  basis  of 
development  and  discussion.  It  had  to  be  linked 
to  the  Bible,  it  became  impregnated  with  and  ob- 
scured by  speculations,  new  traditions  sprang  up, 
new  methods  were  invented,  casuistry  assumed  its 
sway — as  it  did  in  the  legal  schools  that  flourished 
at  that  period  at  Rome,  at  Alexandria,  at  Berytus, 
— and  the  Gemara  ensued.  A  double  Gemara: 
one,  the  expression  of  the  schools  in  Palestine, 
called  that  of  Jerusalem,  redacted  at  Tiberias  (not 
at  Jerusalem)  about  390  a.d.,  and  written  in  what 
may  be  called  "East  Aramaean;"  the  other,  re- 
dacted at  Syra  in  Babylonia,  edited  by  R.  Ashe 
(365-427  a.d).  The  final  close  of  this  codex,  how- 
ever, the  collecting  and  sifting  of  which  took  just 
sixty  years,  is  due  to  the  school  of  the  "Saboraim" 
at  the  end  of  the  fifth  century  a.d.  The  Babylo- 
nian Gemara  is  the  expression  of  the  academies  of 
Syra,  Nehardea,  Pum-Veditha,  Mahusa,  and  other 
places,  during  six  or  seven  generations  of  continu- 
ous development.  This  "Babylonian"  Talmud  is 
couched  in  "Western  Aramaean." 


THE    TALMUD  59 

Neither  of  the  two  codes  was  written  down  at  first 
and  neither  has  survived  in  its  completeness. 
Whether  there  ever  was  a  double  Gemara  to  all  the 
six  or  even  the  first  five  divisions  of  the  Mishnah 
(the  sixth  having  early  fallen  into  disuse),  is  at 
least  very  doubtful.  Much,  however,  that  existed 
has  been  lost.  The  Babylonian  Talmud  is  about 
four  times  as  large  as  that  of  Jerusalem.  Its 
thirty-six  treatises  now  cover,  in  our  editions, 
printed  with  the  most  prominent  commentaries 
(Rashi  and  Tosafoth),  exactly  2947  folio  leaves  in 
twelve  folio  volumes,  the  pagination  of  which  is 
kept  uniform  in  almost  all  editions.  If,  however, 
the  extraneous  portions  are  subtracted,  it  is  only 
about  ten  or  eleven  times  as  large  as  the  Mishnah, 
which  was  redacted  just  as  many  generations  be- 
fore the  Talmud. 

How  the  Talmud  itself  became  by  degrees  what 
the  Mishnah  had  been  to  the  Gemara,  and  what 
the  Scripture  had  been  to  the  early  Scribes,  viz.  a 
Text;  how  the  "Amoraim"  (speakers),  "Sa- 
boraim,"  and  "  Gaonim,"  those  Epigoni  of  the 
"  Scribes,"  made  it  the  centre  of  their  activity  for 
centuries ;  what  endless  commentaries,  disserta- 
tions, expositions,  responses,  novellae,  abstracts, 
etc.,  grew  out  of  it,  we  cannot  here  tell.  Only 
this  much  we  will  add,  that  the  Talmud,  as  such, 
was  never  formally  accepted  by  the  nation,  by 
either  General  or  Special  Council.  Its  legal  de- 
cisions, as  derived  from  the  highest  authorities, 
certainly  formed  the  basis  of  the  religious  law,  the 
norm  of  all  future  decisions  :  as  undoubtedly  the 


6o  THE   TALMUD 

Talmud  is  the  most  trustworthy  canon  of  Jewish 
tradition.  But  its  popularity  is  much  more  due  to 
an  extraneous  cause.  During  the  persecutions 
against  the  Jews  in  the  Persian  empire,  under 
Jesdcgerd  II.,  Firuz,  and  Kobad,  the  schools  were 
closed  for  about  eighty  years.  The  living  develop- 
ment of  the  law  being  stopped,  the  book  obtained 
a  supreme  authority,  such  as  had  probably  never 
been  dreamt  of  by  its  authors.  Need  we  add  that 
what  authority  was  silently  vested  in  it  belonged 
exclusively  to  its  legal  portions  .-*  The  other,  the 
"haggadistic"  or  legendary  portion,  was  "poetry," 
a  thing  beloved  by  women  and  children  and  by 
those  still  and  pensive  minds  which  delight  in 
flowers  and  in  the  song  of  wild  birds.  The 
"Authorities  "  themselves  often  enough  set  their 
faces  against  it,  repudiated  it  and  explained  it 
away.  But  the  people  clung  to  it,  and  in  course  of 
time  gave  to  it  and  it  alone  the  encyclopaedic  name 
of  "Midrash." 

We  have  now  to  say  a  few  words  respecting  the 
language  in  which  these  documents  are  couched, 
as  furnishing  an  additional  key  to  the  mode  of  life 
and  thoughts  of  the  period. 

The  language  of  the  Mishnah  is  as  pure  a 
Hebrew  as  can  be  expected  in  those  days.  The 
people  themselves  spoke,  as  we  mentioned  above, 
a  corrupt  Chaldcc  or  Aramaic,  mixed  with  Greek 
and  Latin.  Many  prayers  of  the  period,  the 
Targums,  the  Gemaras,  are  conceived  in  that  idiom. 
Even  the  Mishnah  itself  could  not  exclude  these 
all-pervading  foreign  elements.     Many  legal  terms, 


THE    TALMUD  6l 

many  names  of  products,  of  heathen  feasts,  of 
household  furniture,  of  meat  and  drink,  of  fruits 
and  garments,  are  borrowed  from  the  classical 
languages.  Here  is  a  curious  addition  to  the 
curious  history  of  words  !  The  bread  which  the 
Semites  had  cast  upon  the  waters,  in  the  archaic 
Phoenician  times,  came  back  to  them  after  many 
days.  If  they  had  given  to  the  early  Greeks  the 
names  for  weights  and  measures,^  for  spice  and 
aromas,^  every  one  of  which  is  Hebrew  :  if  they 
had  imported  the  "  sapphire,  jasper,  emerald,"  the 
fine  materials  for  garments,  ^  and  the  garments 
themselves —  as  indeed  the  well-known  x'twi/  is  but 
the  Hebrew  name  for  Joseph's  coat  in  the  Bible — 
if  the  musical  instruments,*  the  plants,  vessels, 
writing  materials,  and  last,  not  least,  the  "alpha- 
bet "  itself,  came  from  the  Semites  :  the  Greek 
and  Latin  idioms  repaid  them  in  the  Talmudical 
period  with  full  interest,  to  the  great  distress  of 
the  later  scholiasts  and  lexicographers.  The 
Aramaic  itself  was,  as  we  said,  the  language  of  the 
common  people.  It  was,  in  itself,  a  most  pellucid 
and  picturesque  idiom,  lending  itself  admirably 
not  only  to  the  epigrammatic  terseness  of  the 
Gemara,  but  also  to  those  profoundly  poetical  con- 
ceptions of  the  daily  phenomena,  which  had  pene- 
trated even  into  the  cry  of  the  watchmen,  the  pass- 

^  fiuppa^     xivvapwijA)'^^    y.aaia,     vapSw^^    jSdXaapo'^j     olXotj^ 
xpoy.o:;^   etc. 

^  l3u(T(To^,  xdpTzami^,  ()CvS<i>v. 
*  vd/3Xa^  xf^fjpa,  ffamSoxr],  etc. 


62  THE    TALMUD 

word  of  the  temple-guards,  and  the  routine-formula 
of  the  levitical  functionary.  Unfortunately,  it  was 
too  poetical  at  times.  Matters  of  a  purely  meta- 
physical nature,  which  afterwards  grew  into  dog- 
mas through  its  vague  phraseology,  assumed  very 
monstrous  shapes  indeed.  But  it  had  become  in 
the  hands  of  the  people  a  mongrel  idiom ;  and, 
though  gifted  with  a  fine  feeling  for  the  distin- 
guishing characters  of  each  of  the  languages  then 
in  common  use  ("Aramaic  lends  itself  best  to  ele- 
gies, Greek  to  hymns,  Hebrew  to  prayer,  Roman 
to  martial  compositions,"  as  a  common  saying  has 
it),  they  yet  mixed  them  all  up,  somewhat  in  the 
manner  of  the  Pennsylvanians  of  to-day.  After 
all,  it  was  but  the  faithful  reflex  of  those  who 
made  this  idiom  an  enduring  language.  These 
"Masters  of  the  Law"  formed  the  most  mixed 
assembly  in  the  world.  There  were  not  only  natives 
of  all  the  parts  of  the  world-wide  Roman  empire 
among  them,  but  also  denizens  of  Arabia  and 
India ;  a  fact  which  accounts  for  many  phenomena 
in  the  Talmud.  But  there  is  hardly  anything  of 
domestic  or  public  purport,  which  was  not  called 
either  by  its  Greek  or  Latin  name,  or  by  both,  and 
generally  in  so  questionable  a  shape,  and  in  such 
obsolete  forms,  that  both  classical  and  Semitic 
scholars  have  often  need  to  go  through  a  whole 
course  of  archaeology  and  antiquities  before  unrav- 
elling it.^     Save  only  one  province,  that  of  agricul- 

I  Greek  or  Latin,  or  both,  were  the  terms  commonly  em- 
ployed by  them  for  the  table  {rpa-iZa,  tabula,  rpi<7x£/.rj:;, 
Tf/i-ou:;),  the  chair,  the  bench,  the  cushion  (subsellium,  accu- 


THE   TALMUD  6"^ 

ture.  This  alone,  together  with  some  other  trades, 
had  retained  the  old  homely  Semitic  words  :  thereby 
indicating,  not,  as  ignorance  might  be  led  to  con- 
clude, that  the  nation  was  averse  to  it,  but  exactly 
the  contrary :  that  from  the  early  days  of  Joshua 
they  had  never  ceased  to  cherish  the  thought  of 
sitting  under  their  own  vine  and  fig-tree.  We  refer 
for  this  point  to  the  idyllic  picture  given  in  the 
Mishnah  of  the  procession  that  went  up  to  Jerusa- 
lem with  the  first-fruits,  accompanied  by  the  sound 
of  the  flute,  the  sacrificial  bull  with  gilt  horns  and 
an  olive-garland  round  his  head  proudly  marching 
in  front. 

The  Talmud  does,  indeed,  offer  us  a  perfect  pic- 
ture of  the  cosmopolitanism  and  luxury  of  those 
final  days  of  Rome,  such  as  but  few  classical  or 
postclassical  writings  contain.  We  find  mention 
made  of  Spanish  fish,  of  Cretan  apples,  Bithynian 
cheese,  Egyptian  lentils  and  beans,  Greek  and 
Egyptian  pumpkins,  Italian  wine,  Median  beer, 
Egyptian  Zyphus :  garments  were  imported  from 

bitum),  the  room  in  which  they  lived  and  slept  (xntnov, 
suu-^,  e^idfjfx),  the  cup  (cyathus,  phiala  potoria\  out  of  which 
they  drank,  the  eating  and  drinking  itself  (oenogarum,  collyra, 
-upinl'iq,  ^;.£Dsi«?',  acraton,  opsonium,  etc.).  Of  their  dress 
we  have  the  fTzoXT],  sagum,  dalmatica,  braccae,  chirodota. 
On  their  head  they  wore  a  pileus,  and  they  girded  themselves 
with  a  C«i»?.  The  words  sandalium,  solea,  soleus,  talaria, 
impilia,  indicate  the  footgear.  Ladies  adorned  themselves 
with  the  catella,  cochlear,  -up-t],  and  other  sorts  of  rings 
and  bracelets,  and  in  general  whatever  appertained  to  a 
Greek  or  Roman  lady's  fine  apparel.  Among  the  arms  which 
the  man  wore  are  mentioned  the  h'lyyrj,  the  spear,  the 
ndyaipa  (a  word  found  in  Genesis),  the  pugio. 


64  THE   TALMUD 

Pclusium  and  India,  shirts  from  Cilicia,  and  veils 
from  Arabia.  To  the  Arabic,  Persian,  and  Indian 
materials  contained,  in  addition  to  these,  in  the 
Gemara,  a  bare  allusion  may  suffice.  So  much  we 
venture  to  predict,  that  when  once  archaeological 
and  linguistic  science  shall  turn  to  this  field,  they 
will  not  leave  it  again  soon. 

We  had  long  pondered  over  the  best  way  of 
illustrating  to  our  readers  the  extraordinary  man- 
ner in  which  the  "  Haggadah,"  that  second  current 
of  the  Talmud,  of  which  we  spoke  in  the  introduc- 
tion, suddenly  interrupts  the  course  of  the  "  Ha- 
lachah," — when  we  bethought  ourselves  of  the 
device  of  an  old  master.  It  was  a  hot  Eastern 
afternoon,  and  while  he  was  expounding  some  intri- 
cate subtlety  of  the  law,  his  hearers  quietly  fell 
away  in  drowsy  slumbers.  All  of  a  sudden  he 
burst  out :  "  There  was  once  a  woman  in  Egypt 
who  brought  forth  at  one  birth  six  hundred  thou- 
sand men."  And  our  readers  may  fancy  how  his 
audience  started  up  at  this  remarkable  tale  of  the 
prolific  Egyptian  woman.  Her  name,  the  master 
calmly  proceeded,  was  Jochebed,  and  she  was  the 
mother  of  Moses,  who  was  worth  as  much  as  all 
those  six  hundred  thousand  armed  men  together 
who  went  up  from  Egypt.  The  Professor  then, 
after  a  brief  legendary  digression,  proceeded  with 
his  legal  intricacies,  and  his  hearers  slept  no  more 
that  afternoon.  An  Eastern  mind  seems  pecu- 
liarly constituted.  Its  passionate  love  for  things 
wise  and  witty,  for  stories  and  tales,  for  parables 
and  apologues,  does  not  leave  it  even  in  its  most 


THE   TALMUD  65 

severe  studies.  They  are  constantly  needed,  it 
would  appear,  to  keep  the  current  of  its  thoughts 
in  motion  ;  they  are  the  playthings  of  the  grown-up 
children  of  the  Orient.  The  Haggadah,  too,  has 
an  exegesis,  a  system,  a  method  of  its  own.  They 
are  peculiar,  fantastic  things.  We  would  rather 
not  follow  too  closely  its  learned  divisions  into 
homiletical,  ethical,  historical,  general  and  special 
Haggadah. 

The  Haggadah  in  general  transforms  Scripture, 
as  we  said,  into  a  thousand  themes  for  its  varia- 
tions. Everything  being  bound  up  in  the  Bible — 
the  beginning  and  the  end — there  must  be  an 
answer  in  it  to  all  questions.  Find  the  key,  and 
all  the  riddles  in  it  are  solved.  The  persons  of 
the  Bible — the  kings  and  the  patriarchs,  the  heroes 
and  the  prophets,  the  women  and  the  children, 
what  they  did  and  suffered,  their  happiness  and 
their  doom,  their  words  and  their  lives — became, 
apart  from  their  presupposed  historical  reality,  a 
symbol  and  an  allegory.  And  what  the  narrative 
had  omitted,  the  Haggadah  supplied  in  many  vari- 
ations. It  filled  up  these  gaps,  as  a  prophet  look- 
ing into  the  past  might  do ;  it  explained  the 
motives  ;  it  enlarged  the  story ;  it  found  connec- 
tions between  the  remotest  countries,  ages,  and 
people,  often  with  a  startling  realism  ;  it  drew  sub- 
lime morals  from  the  most  commonplace  facts. 
Yet  it  did  all  this  by  quick  and  sudden  motions,  to 
us  most  foreign  ;  and  hence  the  frequent  misunder- 
standing of  its  strange  and  wayward  moods. 

Passing   strange,  indeed,  are   the  ways  of   this 

5 


66  THE    TALMUD 

Prophetess  of  the  Exile,  who  appears  wherever  and 
whenever  she  listeth,  and  disappears  as  suddenly. 
Well  can  we  understand  the  distress  of  mind  in  a 
medieval  divine,  or  even  in  a  modern  savant,  who, 
bent  upon  following  the  most  subtle  windings  of 
some  scientific  debate  in  the  Talmudical  pages — 
geometrical,  botanical,  financial,  or  otherwise — as 
it  revolves  round  the  Sabbath  journey,  the  raising 
of  seeds,  the  computation  of  tithes  and  taxes — 
feels,  as  it  were,  the  ground  suddenly  give  way. 
The  loud  voices  grow  thin,  the  doors  and  walls  of 
the  school-room  vanish  before  his  eyes,  and  in  their 
place  uprises  Rome  the  Great,  the  Urbs  et  Orbis, 
and  her  million-voiced  life.  Or  the  blooming  vine- 
yards round  that  other  City  of  Hills,  Jerusalem  the 
Golden  herself,  are  seen,  and  white-clad  virgins 
move  dreamily  among  them.  Snatches  of  their 
songs  are  heard,  the  rhythm  of  their  choric  dances 
rises  and  falls  :  it  is  the  most  dread  Day  of  Atone- 
ment itself,  which,  in  poetical  contrast,  was  chosen 
by  the  "  Rose  of  Sharon  "  as  a  day  of  rejoicing  to 
walk  among  those  waving  lily-fields  and  vine-clad 
slopes.  Or  the  clarion  of  rebellion  rings  high  and 
shrill  through  the  complicated  debate,  and  Bel- 
shazzar,  the  story  of  whose  ghastly  banquet  is  told 
with  all  the  additions  of  maddening  horror,  is  doing 
service  for  Nero  the  bloody ;  or  Nebuchadnezzar, 
the  Babylonian  tyrant,  and  all  his  hosts,  are  cursed 
with  a  yelling  curse — a  propos  of  some  utterly 
inappropriate  legal  point ;  while  to  the  initiated  he 
stands  for  Titus  the — at  last  exploded — "  Delight 
of  Humanity."     The  symbols  and  hieroglyphs  of 


THE    TALMUD  6/ 

the  Haggadah,  when  fully  explained  some  day,  will 
indeed  form  a  very  curious  contribution  to  the 
unwritten  history  of  man.  Often — far  too  often 
for  the  interests  of  study  and  the  glory  of  the 
human  race — does  the  steady  tramp  of  the  Roman 
cohort,  the  password  of  the  revolution,  the  shriek 
and  clangor  of  the  bloody  field,  interrupt  these 
debates,  and  the  arguing  masters  and  disciples 
don  their  arms,  and,  with  the  cry  "Jerusalem  and 
Liberty,"  rush  to  the  fray. 

Those  who  look  with  an  eye  of  disfavor  upon  all 
these  extraneous  matters  as  represented  by  the 
Haggadah  in  the  Talmud — the  fairy  tales  and  the 
jests,  the  stories  and  the  parables,  and  all  that 
strange  agglomeration  of  foreign  things  crystal- 
lized around  the  legal  kernel — should  remember, 
above  all,  one  fact.  As  this  tangled  mass  lies 
before  us,  it  represents  at  best  a  series  of  photo- 
graphic slides,  half  broken,  mutilated  and  faded  : 
though  what  remains  of  them  is  startlingly  faithful 
to  the  original.  As  the  disciple  had  retained,  in 
his  memory  or  his  quick  notes,  the  tenor  of  the 
single  debates,  interspersed  with  the  thousand  allu- 
sions, reminiscences,  apcr^us,  facts,  quotations,  and 
the  rest,  so  he  perpetuated  it — sometimes  well, 
sometimes  ill.  If  well,  we  have  a  feeling  as  if, 
after  a  long  spell  of  musings  or  ponderings,  we 
were  trying  to  retrace  the  course  of  our  ideas — and 
the  most  incongruous  things  spring  up  and  disap- 
pear, apparently  without  rhyme  or  reason.  And 
yet  there  is  a  deep  significance  and  connection  in 
them.     Creeping  or  flying,  melodious  or  grating, 


68  THE    TALMUD 

they  carry  us  on  ;  and  there  is  just  this  difference 
in  the  Talmudical  wanderings,  that  they  never  lose 
themselves.  Suddenly,  when  least  expected,  the 
original  question  is  repeated,  together  with  the  an- 
swer, distilled  as  it  were  out  of  these  thousand  for- 
eign things  of  which  we  did  not  always  see  the 
drift.  If  ill  reported,  the  page  becomes  like  a  broken 
dream,  a  half-transparent  palimpsest.  Would  it 
perhaps  have  been  better  if  a  wise  discretion  had 
guided  the  hands  of  the  first  redactors  ?  We  think 
not.  The  most  childish  of  trifles,  found  in  an  As- 
syrian mound,  is  of  value  to  him  who  understands 
such  things,  and  who  from  them  may  deduce  a 
number  of  surprisingly  important  results. 

We  shall  devote  the  brief  space  that  remains  to 
this  Haggadah.  And  for  a  general  picture  of  it 
we  shall  refer  to  Bunyan,  who,  speaking  of  his  own 
book,  which — )}iiitatis  viutajidis — is  very  Haggadis- 
tic,  unknowingly  describes  the  Haggadah  as  accu- 
rately as  can  be  : 

"  .    .    .    .  Would'st  thou  divert  thyself  from  melancholy  ? 

Would'st  thou  be  pleasant,  yet  be  far  from  folly  ? 

Would'st  thou  read  riddles  and  their  explanation  ? 

Or  else  be  drowned  in  thy  contemplation  ? 

Dost  thou  love  picking  meat  ?  Or  would'st  thou  see 

A  man  i'  the  clouds,  and  hear  him  speak  to  thee  .'' 

Would'st  thou  be  in  a  dream,  and  yet  not  sleep  ? 

Or,  would'st  thou  in  a  moment  laugh  and  weep  ? 

Would'st  lose  thyself,  and  catch  no  harm  ? 

And  find  thyself  again  without  a  charm  ? 

Would'st  read  thyself,  and  read  thou  know'st  not  what  ? 

And  yet  know  whether  thou  art  blest  or  not 

By  reading  the  same  lines  .'*    O  then  come  hither, 

And  lay  this  book,  thy  head  and  heart  together.  ..." 


THE   TALMUD  69 

We  would  not  reproach  those  who,  often  with  the 
best  intentions  in  the  world,  have  brought  almost 
the  entire  Haggadistic  province  into  disrepute.  We 
really  do  not  wonder  that  the  so-called  "rabbinical 
stories,"  that  have  from  time  to  time  been  brought 
before  the  English  public,  have  not  met  with  the 
most  flattering  reception.  The  Talmud,  which  has 
a  drastic  word  for  every  occasion,  says,  "  They 
dived  into  an  ocean  and  brought  up  a  potsherd." 
First  of  all,  these  stories  form  only  a  small  item  in 
the  vast  mass  of  allegories,  parables,  and  the  like 
that  make  up  the  Haggadah.  And  they  were 
partly  ill-chosen,  partly  badly  rendered,  and  partly 
did  not  even  belong  to  the  Talmud,  but  to 
some  recent  Jewish  story-book.  Herder — to  name 
the  most  eminent  judge  of  the  "  Poetry  of  Peo- 
ples,"— has  extolled  what  he  saw  of  the  genuine 
specimens  in  transcendental  terms.  And  in  truth 
not  only  is  the  entire  world  of  pious  biblical  legend 
which  Islam  has  said  and  sung  in  its  many  tongues, 
to  the  delight  of  the  wise  and  simple  for  twelve 
centuries,  now  to  be  found  either  in  embryo  or 
fully  developed  in  the  Haggadah,  but  much  that 
is  familiar  among  ourselves  in  the  circles  of  medie- 
val sagas,  in  Dante,  in  Boccaccio,  in  Cervantes,  in 
Milton,  in  Bunyan,  has  consciously  or  unconsciously 
flowed  out  of  this  wondrous  realm,  the  Haggadah. 
That  much  of  it  is  overstrained,  even  according  to 
Eastern  notions,  we  do  not  deny.  But  there  are 
feeble  passages  even  in  Homer  and  Shakspeare, 
and  there  are  always  people  with  a  happy  instinct 
of  picking  out  the  weakest  portions  of  a  work; 


70  THE    TALMUD 

while  even  the  best  pages  of  Shakspeare  and  Ho- 
mer arc  apt  to  be  spoiled  by  awkward  manipulation. 
At  the  same  time  we  are  far  from  advising  a  whole- 
sale translation  of  these  Haggadistic  productions. 
Nothing  could  be  more  tedious  than  a  continuous 
course  of  such  reading,  though  choice  bits  from 
them  would  satisfy  even  the  most  fastidious  critic. 
And  such  bits,  scattered  through  the  Talmud,  are 
delightfully  refreshing. 

It  is,  unfortunately,  not  in  our  power  to  indicate 
any  specimens  of  its  strikingly  keen  interpreta- 
tions, of  its  gorgeous  dreams,  its — 

"  Beautiful  old  stories, 
Tales  of  angels,  fairy  legends, 
Stilly  histories  of  martyrs, 
Festal  songs  and  words  of  wisdom  ; 
Hyperboles,  most  quaint  it  may  be, 
Yet  replete  with  strength,  and  fire, 
And  faith — how  they  gleam. 
And  glow  and  glitter!  .   .   ." 

as  Heine  has  it. 

It  seems  of  more  moment  to  call  attention  to  an 
entirely  new  branch  of  investigation,  namely,  Tal- 
mudical  metaphysics  and  ethics,  such  as  may  be 
gleaned  from  the  Haggadah,  of  which  we  shall  now 
take  a  brief  glance. 

Beginning  with  the  Creation,  we  find  the  gradual 
development  of  the  Cosmos  fully  recognized  by  the 
Talmud.  It  assumes  destruction  after  destruction, 
stage  after  stage.  And  in  their  quaintly  ingenious 
manner  the  Masters  refer  to  the  verse  in  Genesis, 
"And  God  saw  all  that  he  had  made,  and  behold 
it  was  very  good,"  and  to  that  other  in  Eccles.  iii. 


THE   TALMUD  ^l 

1 1,  "  God  created  everything  in  its  proper  season  ; " 
and  argue  "  He  created  worlds  upon  worlds,  and 
destroyed  them  one  after  the  other,  until  He  cre- 
ated this  world.  He  then  said,  "This  pleases  me, 
the  others  did  not ;  " — "  in  its  proper  season  " — "  it 
was  not  meet  to  create  ^/lis  world  until  now." 

The  Talmud  assumes  some  original  substance, 
itself  created  by  God,  out  of  which  the  Universe 
was  shaped.  There  is  a  perceptible  leaning  to  the 
early  Greek  schools.  "  One  or  three  things  were 
before  this  world  :  Water,  Fire,  and  Wind :  Water 
begat  the  Darkness,  Fire  begat  Light,  and  Wind 
begat  the  spirit  of  Wisdom."  The  How  of  the 
creation  was  not  even  matter  of  speculation.  The 
co-operation  of  angels,  whose  existence  was  war- 
ranted by  Scripture,  and  a  whole  hierarchy  of  whom 
had  been  built  up  under  Persian  influences,  was 
distinctly  denied.  In  a  discussion  about  the  day 
of  their  creation  it  is  agreed,  on  all  hands,  that 
there  were  no  angels  at  first,  "lest  men  might  say 
'Michael  spanned  out  the  firmament  on  the  south 
and  Gabriel  to  the  north.'  "  There  is  a  distinct 
foreshadowing  of  the  gnostic  Demiurgos — that  an- 
tique link  between  the  Divine  Spirit  and  the  World 
of  Matter — to  be  found  in  the  Talmud.  What  with 
Plato  were  the  Ideas,  with  Philo  the  Logos,  with 
the  Kabbalists  the  "  World  of  Aziluth,"  what  the 
Gnostics  called  more  emphatically  the  wisdom 
(jTo<pi(i)  or  power  {povaju^)^  and  Plotinus  the  vo'3c, 
that  the  Talmudical  Authors  call  Metatron.^  The 
angels — whose  names,  according  to   the   Talmud 

I  This  name  is  most  probably  nothing  but  Mithra. 


72  THE    TALMUD 

itself,  the  Jews  brought  back  from  Babylon — play, 
after  the  exile,  a  very  different  part  from  those 
before  the  exile.  They  are,  in  fact,  more  or  less 
Persian  :  as  are  also  for  the  most  part  all  incanta- 
tions, the  magical  cures,  the  sidereal  influences, 
and  the  rest  of  the  "  heathen  "  elements  contained 
in  the  Talmud.  Even  the  number  of  the  Angelic 
Princes  is  seven,  like  that  of  the  Amcsha-^pehtas, 
and  their  Hebrew  names  and  their  functions  cor- 
respond, as  nearly  as  can  be,  to  those  of  their  Per- 
sian prototypes,  who,  on  their  own  part,  have  only 
at  this  moment  been  discovered  to  be  merely  alle- 
gorical names  for  God's  supreme  qualities.  Much 
as  the  Talmudical  authorities  inveigh  against  those 
"heathen  ways,"  sympathetic  cures,  the  exorcisms 
of  demons,  the  charms,  and  the  rest,  the  working 
of  miracles,  very  much  in  vogue  in  those  days,  yet 
they  themselves  were  drawn  into  large  concessions 
to  angels  and  demons.  Besides  the  seven  Angel 
Princes,  there  are  hosts  of  ministering  angels — the 
Persian  Yazatas — whose  functions,  besides  that 
of  being  messengers,  are  two-fold :  to  praise 
God  and  to  be  guardians  of  man.  In  their  first 
capacity  they  are  daily  created  by  God's  breath  out 
of  a  stream  of  fire  that  rolls  its  waves  under  the 
divine  throne.  As  guardian  angels  (Persian  Fra- 
vasJiis)  two  of  them  accompany  every  man,  and  for 
every  new  good  deed  man  acquires  a  new  guardian 
angel,  who  always  watches  over  his  steps.  When 
the  righteous  dies,  three  hosts  of  angels  meet  him. 
One  says  (in  the  words  of  Scripture)  "He  shall 
go  in  peace,"  the  second  takes  up  the  strain  and 


THE    TALMUD  73 

says,  "  Who  has  walked  in  righteousness,"  and  the 
third  concludes,  "  Let  him  come  in  peace  and  rest 
upon  his  bed."  If  the  wicked  leaves  the  world, 
three  hosts  of  wicked  angels  come  to  meet  him/ 

With  regard  to  the  providential  guidance  of  the 
Universe,  this  was  in  God's  hand  alone.  As  He  is 
the  sole  Creator  and  Legislator,  so  also  is  He  the 
sole  arbiter  of  destinies.  "  Every  nation,"  the  Tal- 
mud says,  "  has  its  special  guardian  angel,  its  horo- 
scopes, its  ruling  planets  and  stars.  But  there  is 
no  planet  for  Israel.  Israel  shall  look  but  to  Him. 
There  is  no  mediator  between  those  who  are  called 
His  children,  and  their  Father  which  is  in  Heaven." 
The  Jerusalem  Talmud — written  under  the  direct 
influence  of  Roman  manners  and  customs,  has  the 
following  parable  :  "  A  man  has  a  patron.  If  some 
evil  happens  to  him,  he  does  not  enter  suddenly 
into  the  presence  of  this  patron,  but  he  goes  and 
stands  at  the  door  of  his  house.  He  does  not  ask 
for  the  patron,  but  for  his  favorite  slave,  or  his  son, 
who  then  goes  and  tells  the  master  inside :  The 
man  N.  N.  is  standing  at  the  gate  of  the  hall,  shall 
he  come  in  or  not  i* — Not  so  the  Holy,  praised  be 
He.  If  misfortune  comes  upon  a  man,  let  him  not 
cry  to  Michael  and  not  to  Gabriel,  but  unto  Me  let 
him  cry,  and  I  will  answer  him  right  speedily — as 

^  This  science  of  angels  and  demons  {Shedim  =  Pers. 
Daevas) — links  between  men  and  angels,  or  rather  personi- 
fied passions — which  flourished  very  vigorously  at  the  begin- 
ning of  Christianity,  is,  altogether,  one  of  the  most  interest- 
ing, particularly  with  regard  to  the  striking  parallels  it  offers 
between  Judaism,  Christianity,  Islam,  and  Zoroastrianism  : 
but  we  forbear  to  enlarge  upon  it. 


74  THE    TALMUD 

it  is  said,  Every  one  who  shall  call  on  the  name  of 
the  Lord  shall  be  saved." 

The  end  and  aim  of  Creation  is  man,  who,  there- 
fore, was  created  last,  "when  everything  was  ready 
for  his  reception."  When  he  has  reached  the  per- 
fection of  virtue  "  he  is  higher  than  the  angels 
themselves." 

Miracles  are  considered  by  the  Talmud — much 
as  Leibnitz  regards  all  the  movements  of  every 
limb  of  our  body — as  only  possible  through  a  sort 
of  "prestabilitated  harmony,"  /.  c,  the  course  of 
creation  was  not  disturbed  by  them,  but  they  were 
all  primevally  "  existing,"  "  pre-ordained."  They 
were  "  created  "  at  the  end  of  all  other  things,  in  the 
gloaming  of  the  sixth  day.  Among  them,  however, 
was — and  this  will  interest  our  palaeographers — 
also  the  art  of  writing :  an  invention  considered 
beyond  all  arts  :  nothing  short  of  a  miracle.  Crea- 
tion, together  with  these  so-called  exceptions,  once 
established,  nothing  could  be  altered  in  it.  The 
Laws  of  Nature  went  on  by  their  own  immutable 
force,  however  much  evil  might  spring  therefrom. 
"These  wicked  ones  not  only  vulgarize  my  coin," 
says  the  Haggadah  with  reference  to  the  propaga- 
tion of  the  evil-doers  and  their  kin,  bearing  the 
human  face  divine,  "but  they  actually  make  me 
impress  base  coin  with  my  own  stamp." 

God's  real  name  is  ineffable;  but  there  are  many 
designations  indicative  of  his  qualities,  such  as  the 
Merciful  (Rachman,  a  name  of  frequent  occurrence 
both  in  the  Koran  and  in  the  Talmud),  the  Holy 
One,    the    Place,   the    Meavcns,    the  Word,    Our 


THE    TALMUD  75 

Father  which    is    in   Heaven,   the  Almighty,  the 
Shechinah,  or  Sacred  Presence, 

The  doctrine  of  the  soul  bears  more  the  impress 
of  the  Platonic  than  of  the  Aristotelian  school.  It 
is  held  to  be  pre-existing.  All  souls  that  are  ever 
to  be  united  to  bodies  have  been  created  once  for 
all,  and  are  hidden  away  from  the  first  moment  of 
creation.  They,  being  creatures  of  the  highest 
realms,  are  cognizant  of  all  things,  but,  at  the  hour 
of  their  birth  in  a  human  body,  an  angel  touches 
the  mouth  of  the  child,  which  causes  it  to  forget 
all  that  has  been.  Very  striking  is  the  comparison 
between  the  soul  and  God,  a  comparison  which  has 
an  almost  pantheistic  look.  "  As  God  fills  the 
whole  universe,"  says  the  Haggadah,  "so  the  soul 
fills  the  whole  body ;  as  God  sees  and  is  not  seen, 
so  the  soul  sees  and  is  not  seen ;  as  God  nourishes 
the  whole  universe,  so  the  soul  nourishes  the  whole 
body ;  as  God  is  pure,  so  the  soul  is  pure."  This 
purity  is  specially  dwelt  upon  in  contradistinction 
to  the  theory  of  hereditary  sin,  which  is  denied. 
"  There  is  no  death  without  individual  sin,  no  pain 
without  individual  transgression.  That  same  spirit 
that  dictated  in  the  Pentateuch :  '  And  parents 
shall  not  die  for  their  children,  nor  the  children  for 
their  parents,'  has  ordained  that  no  one  should  be 
punished  for  another's  transgressions."  In  the 
judgment  on  sin  the  animus  is  taken  into  consid- 
eration. The  desire  to  commit  the  vice  is  held  to 
be  more  wicked  than  the  vice  itself. 

The  fear  of  God,  or  a  virtuous  life,  the  whole 
aim  and  end  of  a  man's  existence,  is  entirely  in 


76  THE    TALMUD 

man's  hand.  "  Everything  is  in  God's  hand  save 
the  fear  of  God."  But  "one  hour  of  repentance  is 
better  than  the  whole  world  to  come."  The  fullest 
liberty  is  granted  in  this  respect  to  every  human 
being,  though  the  help  of  God  is  necessary  for  car- 
rying it  out. 

The  dogma  of  the  Resurrection  and  of  Immor- 
tality, vaguely  indicated  in  the  various  parts  of  the 
Old  Testament,  has  been  fixed  by  the  Talmud,  and 
traced  to  several  biblical  passages.  Various  are  the 
similes  by  which  the  relation  of  this  world  to  the 
world  to  come  is  indicated.  This  world  is  like  unto 
a  "  Prosdora"  to  the  next  :  "  Prepare  thyself  in  the 
hall,  that  thou  mayest  be  admitted  into  the  palace:" 
or,  "  This  world  is  like  a  roadside  inn  (hospitium), 
but  the  world  to  come  is  like  the  real  home."  The 
righteous  are  represented  as  perfecting  themselves 
and  developing  all  their  highest  faculties  even  in 
the  next  world  ;  "for  the  righteous  there  is  no  rest, 
neither  in  this  world  nor  in  the  next,  for  they  go, 
say  the  Scriptures,  from  host  to  host,  from  striving 
to  striving: — they  will  see  God  in  Zion."  How  all 
its  deeds  and  the  hour  when  they  were  committed 
are  unfolded  to  the  sight  of  the  departed  soul,  the 
terrors  of  the  grave,  the  rolling  back  to  Jerusalem 
on  the  day  of  the  grea.t  trumpet,  we  need  not  here 
tell  in  detail.  These  half-metaphysical  half-mys- 
tical speculations  are  throughout  in  the  manner  of 
the  more  poetical  early  Church  fathers  of  old  and 
of  Bunyan  in  our  times.  Only  the  glow  of  imagi- 
nation and  the  conciseness  of  language  in  which 
they  are  mostly  told  in  the  Talmud  contrast  favor- 


THE    TALMUD  77 

ably  with  the  vcrboseness  of  later  times.  The 
Resurrection  is  to  take  place  by  the  mystic  power 
of  the  "Dew  of  Life"  in  Jerusalem — on  Mount 
Olivet,  add  the  Targums. 

There  is  no  everlasting  damnation  according  to 
the  Talmud.  There  is  only  a  temporary  punish- 
ment even  for  the  worst  sinners.  "  Generations 
upon  generations  "  shall  last  the  damnation  of  idol- 
aters, apostates,  and  traitors.  But  there  is  a  space 
of  "only  two  fingers'  breadth  between  Hell  and 
Heaven  ;"  the  sinner  has  but  to  repent  sincerely 
and  the  gates  to  everlasting  bliss  will  spring  open. 
No  human  being  is  excluded  from  the  world  to 
come.  Every  man,  of  whatever  creed  or  nation, 
provided  he  be  of  the  righteous,  shall  be  admitted 
into  it.  The  punishment  of  the  wicked  is  not  spe- 
cified, as  indeed  all  the  descriptions  of  the  next 
world  are  left  vague,  yet,  with  regard  to  Paradise, 
the  idea  of  something  inconceivably  glorious  is 
conveyed  at  every  step.  The  passage,  "  Eye  has 
not  seen  nor  has  ear  heard,"  is  applied  to  its  un- 
speakable bliss.  "  In  the  next  world  there  will  be 
no  eating,  no  drinking,  no  love  and  no  labor,  no 
envy,  no  hatred,  no  contest.  The  Righteous  will 
sit  with  crowns  on  their  heads,  glorying  in  the 
Splendor  of  God's  Majesty." 

The  essence  of  prophecy  gives  rise  to  some  specu- 
lation. One  decisive  Talmudical  dictum  is,  that  God 
does  not  cause  his  spirit  to  rest  upon  any  one  but 
a  strong,  wise,  rich,  and  humble  man.  Strong  and 
rich  are  in  the  Mishnah  explained  in  this  wise  : 
"Who  is  strong.''     He  who  subdues  his  passion. 


78  THE    TALMUD 

Who  is  rich  ?  He  who  is  satisfied  with  his  lot." 
There  are  degrees  among  prophets.  Moses  saw 
everything  clearly ;  the  other  prophets  as  in  dark 
mirrors.  "  Ezekiel  and  Isaiah  say  the  same  things, 
but  Isaiah  like  a  town-bred  man,  Ezekiel  like  a 
villager."  The  prophet's  word  is  to  be  obeyed  in 
all  things,  save  when  he  commands  the  worship  of 
idolatry.  The  notion  of  either  Elijah  or  Moses 
having  in  reality  ascended  "to  Heaven"  is  utterly 
repudiated,  as  well  as  that  of  the  Deity  (Shechinah) 
having  descended  from  Heaven  "more  than  ten 
hands'  breadth." 

The  "philosophy  of  religion"  will  be  best  com- 
prehended by  some  of  those  "small  coins,"  the 
popular  and  pithy  sayings,  gnomes,  proverbs,  and 
the  rest,  which,  even  better  than  street  songs, 
characterize  a  time.  With  these  we  shall  conclude. 
We  have  thought  it  preferable  to  give  them  at 
random  as  we  found  them,^  instead  of  building  up 
from  them  a  system  of  "  Ethics  "  or  "  Duties  of 
the  Heart."  We  have  naturally  preferred  the  bet- 
ter and  more  characteristic  ones  that  came  in  our 

I  With  regard  to  the  striking  parallels  exhibited  by  them 
to  some  of  the  most  sublime  dicta  of  the  Gospels,  we  dis- 
claim any  intention  of  having  purposely  selected  them.  It  is 
utterly  impossible  to  read  a  page  of  the  Talmud  and  of  the 
New  Testament  without  coming  upon  innumerable  instances 
of  this  kind,  as  indeed  they  constantly  seem  to  supplement 
each  other.  We  need  not  urge  the  priority  of  the  Talmud  to 
the  New  Testament,  although  the  former  was  redacted  at  a 
later  period.  To  assume  that  the  Talmud  has  borrowed 
from  the  New  Testament  would  be  like  assuming  that  Sans- 
krit sprang  from  Latin,  or  that  French  was  developed  from 
the  Norman  words  found  in  English. 


THE   TALMUD  79 

way.  We  may  add — a  remark  jDcrhaps  not  quite 
superfluous — that  the  following  specimens,  as  well 
as  the  quotations  which  we  have  given  in  the 
course  of  this  article,  have  been  all  translated  by 
us,  as  literally  as  possible,  from  the  Talmud  itself. 

"  Be  thou  the  cursed,  not  he  who  curses.  Be  of  them  that 
are  persecuted,  not  of  them  that  persecute.  Look  at  Scrip- 
ture :  there  is  not  a  single  bird  more  persecuted  than  the 
dove;  yet  God  has  chosen  her  to  be  offered  up  on  his  altar. 
The  bull  is  hunted  by  the  lion,  the  sheep  by  the  wolf,  the 
goat  by  the  tiger.  And  God  said,  '  Bring  me  a  sacrifice,  not 
from  them  that  persecute,  but  from  them  that  are  perse- 
cuted.'— We  read  (Ex.  xvii.  ii)  that  while,  in  the  contest  with 
Amalek,  Moses  lifted  up  his  arms,  Israel  prevailed.  Did 
Moses's  hands  make  war  or  break  war?  But  this  is  to  tell 
you  that  as  long  as  Israel  are  looking  upwards  and  humbling 
their  hearts  before  their  Father  which  is  in  Heaven,  they 
prevail;  if  not,  they  fall.  In  the  same  way  you  find  (Num. 
xxi.  9\  '  And  Moses  made  a  serpent  of  brass,  and  put  it 
upon  a  pole :  and  it  came  to  pass,  that  if  a  serpent  had  bitten 
any  man,  when  he  beheld  the  serpent  of  brass,  he  lived.' 
Dost  think  that  a  serpent  killeth  or  giveth  life  ?  But  as  long 
as  Israel  are  looking  upwards  to  their  Father  which  is  in 
Heaven  they  will  live  ;  if  not,  they  will  die. — '  Has  God  plea- 
sure in  the  meat  and  blood  of  sacrifices  ? '  asks  the  prophet- 
No  ;  He  has  not  so  much  ordained  as  permitted  them.  It  is 
for  yourselves,  he  says,  not  for  me  that  you  offer.  Like  a 
king,  who  sees  his  son  carousing  daily  with  all  manner  of 
evil  companions :  You  shall  henceforth  eat  and  drink  entirely 
at  your  will  at  my  own  table,  he  says.  They  offered  sacrifi- 
ces to  demons  and  devils,  for  they  loved  sacrificing,  and 
could  not  do  without  it.  And  the  Lord  said,  '  Bring  your 
offerings  to  Me ;  you  shall  then  at  least  offer  to  the  true  God.' 
— Scripture  ordains  that  the  Hebrew  slave  who  'loves'  his 
bondage,  shall  have  his  ear  pierced  against  the  door-post. 
Why?  because  it  is  that  ear  which  heard  on  Sinai,  'They 
are  My  servants,  they  shall  not  be  sold  as  bondsmen : ' — 


80  THE    TALMUD 

They  are  My  servants,  not  servants'  servants.  And  this  man. 
voluntarily  throws  away  his  precious  freedom — '  Pierce  his 
ear ! ' — '  He  who  sacrifices  a  whole  offering,  shall  be  rewarded 
for  a  whole  offering;  he  who  offers  a  burnt-offering,  shall 
have  the  reward  of  a  burnt-offering;  but  he  who  offers  humil- 
ity unto  God  and  man,  shall  be  rewarded  with  a  reward  as 
if  he  had  offered  all  the  sacrifices  in  the  world.' — The  child 
loves  its  mother  more  than  its  father.  It  fears  its  father  more 
than  its  mother.  See  how  the  Scripture  makes  the  father  pre- 
cede the  mother  in  the  injunction,  '  Thou  shalt  love  thy 
father  and  thy  mother;'  and  the  mother,  when  it  says, 
'  Honor  thy  mother  and  thy  father.' — Bless  God  for  the 
good  as  well  as  the  evil.  When  you  hear  of  a  death  say, 
'  Blessed  is  the  righteous  Judge.' — Even  when  the  gates  of 
heaven  are  shut  to  prayer,  they  are  open  to  those  of  tears. — 
Prayer  is  Israel's  only  weapon,  a  weapon  inherited  from  its 
fathers,  a  weapon  tried  in  a  thousand  battles. — When  the 
righteous  dies,  it  is  the  earth  that  loses.  The  lost  jewel  will 
always  be  a  jewel,  but  the  possessor  who  has  lost  it — well  may 
he  weep. — Life  is  a  passing  shadow,  says  the  Scripture.  Is 
it  the  shadow  of  a  tower,  of  a  tree  .''  A  shadow  that  prevails 
for  a  while  .f*  No,  it  is  the  shadow  of  a  bird  in  his  flight — 
away  flies  the  bird  and  there  is  neither  bird  nor  shadow. — 
Repent  one  day  before  thy  death.  There  was  a  king  who 
bade  all  his  servants  to  a  great  repast,  but  did  not  indicate 
the  hour:  some  went  home  and  put  on  their  best  garments 
and  stood  at  the  door  of  the  palace ;  others  said.  There  is 
ample  time,  the  king  will  let  us  know  beforehand.  But  the 
king  summoned  them  of  a  sudden ;  and  those  that  came  in 
their  best  garments  were  well  received,  but  the  foolish  ones, 
who  came  in  their  slovenliness,  were  turned  away  in  disgrace. 
Repent  to-day,  lest  to-morrow  ye  might  be  summoned. — The 
aim  and  end  of  all  wisdom  are  repentance  and  good  works. — 
Even  the  most  righteous  shall  not  attain  to  so  high  a  place  in 
Heaven  as  the  truly  repentant. — The  reward  of  good  works 
is  like  dates :  sweet  and  ripening  late. — The  dying  benedic- 
tion of  a  sage  to  his  disciples  was :  I  pray  for  you  that  the 
fear  of  Heaven  may  be  as  strong  upon  you  as  the  fear  of 
man.     You  avoid  sin  before  the  face  of  the  latter :  avoid  it 


THE    TALMUD  51 

before  the  face  of  the  All-seeing. — *  If  your  God  hates  idola- 
try, why  docs  he  not  destroy  it  ? '  a  heathen  asked.  And  they 
answered  him :  Behold,  they  worship  the  sun,  the  moon,  the 
stars ;  would  you  have  him  destroy  this  beautiful  world  for 
the  sake  of  the  foolish?— If  your  God  is  a  'friend  of  the 
poor,'  asked  another,  why  does  he  not  support  them  .'*  Their 
case,  a  sage  answered,  is  left  in  our  hands,  that  we  may 
thereby  acquire  merits  and  forgiveness  of  sin.  But  what  a 
merit  it  is!  the  other  replied;  suppose  I  am  angry  with  one 
of  my  slaves,  and  forbid  him  food  and  drink,  and  some  one 
goes  and  gives  it  him  furtively,  shall  I  be  much  pleased  ? 
Not  so,  the  other  replied.  Suppose  you  are  wroth  with  your 
only  son  and  imprison  him  without  food,  and  some  good  man 
has  pity  on  the  child,  and  saves  him  from  the  pangs  of 
hunger,  would  you  be  so  very  angry  with  the  man  ?  And  we, 
if  we  are  called  servants  of  God,  are  also  called  his  children. 
— He  who  has  more  learning  than  good  works  is  like  a  tree 
with  many  branches  but  few  roots,  which  the  first  wind 
throws  on  its  face ;  whilst  he  whose  works  are  greater  than 
his  knowledge  is  like  a  tree  with  many  roots  and  fewer 
branches,  but  which  all  the  winds  of  heaven  cannot  uproot. 
"  Love  your  wife  like  yourself,  honor  her  more  than  your- 
self. Whosoever  lives  unmarried,  lives  without  joy,  without 
comfort,  without  blessing.  Descend  a  step  in  choosing  a 
wife.  If  thy  wife  is  small,  bend  down  to  her  and  whisper  into 
her  ear.  He  who  forsakes  the  love  of  his  youth,  God's  altar 
weeps  for  him.  He  who  sees  his  wife  die  before  him  has,  as 
it  were,  been  present  at  the  destruction  of  the  sanctuary  itself 
— around  him  the  world  grows  dark.  It  is  woman  alone 
through  whom  God's  blessings  are  vouchsafed  to  a  house. 
She  teaches  the  children,  speeds  the  husband  to  the  place  of 
worship  and  instruction,  welcomes  him  when  he  returns, 
keeps  the  house  godly  and  pure,  and  God's  blessings  rest 
upon  all  these  things.  He  who  marries  for  money,  his  chil- 
dren shall  be  a  curse  to  him.— The  house  that  does  not  open 
to  the  poor  shall  open  to  the  physician.  The  birds  in  the  air 
even  despise  the  miser.  He  who  gives  charity  in  secret  is 
greater  than  Moses  himself.     Honor  the  sons  of  the  poor,  it 

6 


82  THE    TALMUD 

is  they  who  bring  science  into  splendor. — Let  the  honor  of 
thy  neighbor  be  to  thee  like  thine  own.  Rather  be  thrown 
into  a  fiery  furnace  than  bring  anyone  to  public  shame. — 
Hospitality  is  the  most  important  part  of  Divine  worship. 
There  are  three  crowns  :  of  the  law,  the  priesthood,  the  king- 
ship; but  the  crown  of  a  good  name  is  greater  than  they  all. 
— Iron  breaks  the  stone,  fire  melts  iron,  water  extinguishes 
fire,  the  clouds  drink  up  the  water,  a  storm  drives  away  the 
clouds,  man  withstands  the  storm,  fear  unmans  man,  wine 
dispels  fear,  sleep  drives  away  wine,  and  death  sweeps  all 
away — even  sleep.  But  Solomon  the  Wise  says :  Charity 
saves  from  Death. — How  can  you  escape  sin  ?  Think  of  three 
things:  whence  thoucomest,  whither  thou  goest,  and  to  whom 
thou  wilt  have  to  account  for  all  thy  deeds:  even  to  the  King 
of  Kings,  the  AH  Holy,  praised  be  He. — Four  shall  not  enter 
Paradise :  the  scoffer,  the  liar,  the  hypocrite,  and  the  slanderer. 
To  slander  is  to  murder. — The  cock  and  the  owl  both  await 
the  daylight.  The  light,  says  the  cock,  brings  delight  to  me, 
but  what  are  you  waiting  for? — When  the  thief  has  no  op- 
portunity for  stealing,  he  considers  himself  an  honest  man. — 
If  thy  friends  agree  in  calling  thee  an  ass,  go  and  get  a  halter 
around  thee. — Thy  friend  has  a  friend,  and  thy  friend's  friend 
has  a  friend :  be  discreet. — The  dog  sticks  to  you  on  account 
of  the  crumbs  in  your  pocket. — He  in  whose  family  there  has 
been  one  hanged  should  not  say  to  his  neighbor.  Pray,  hang 
this  little  fish  up  for  me. — The  camel  wanted  to  have  horns, 
and  they  took  away  his  ears. — The  soldiers  fight,  and  the 
kings  are  the  heroes. — The  thief  invokes  God  while  he  breaks 
into  the  house. — The  woman  of  sixty  will  run  after  music  like 
one  of  six. — After  the  thief  runs  the  theft ;  after  the  beggar, 
poverty. — While  thy  foot  is  shod,  smash  the  thorn. — When 
the  ox  is  down,  many  are  the  butchers. — Descend  a  step  in 
choosing  a  wife,  mount  a  step  in  choosing  a  friend. — If  there 
is  anything  bad  about  you,  say  it  yourself. — Luck  makes  rich, 
luck  makes  wise. — Beat  the  gods,  and  the  priests  will  tremble. 
— Were  it  not  for  the  existence  of  passions,  no  one  would  build 
a  house,  marry  a  wife,  beget  children,  or  do  any  work. — The 
sun  will  go  down  all  by  himself,  without  your  assistance. — 
The  world  could  not  well  get  on  without  perfumers  and  with- 


THE    TALMUD  83 

out  tanners  :  but  woe  unto  the  tanner,  well  to  the  perfumer ! 
— Fools  are  no  proof. — No  man  is  to  be  made  responsible  for 
words  which  he  utters  in  his  grief. — One  eats,  another  says 
grace. — He  who  is  ashamed  will  not  easily  commit  sin.  There 
is  a  great  difference  between  him  who  is  ashamed  before 
his  own  self  and  him  who  is  only  ashamed  before  others.  It 
is  a  good  sign  in  man  to  be  capable  of  being  ashamed.  One 
contrition  in  man's  heart  is  better  than  many  flagellations. — 
If  our  ancestors  were  like  angels,  we  are  like  men;  if  our 
ancestors  were  like  men,  we  are  like  asses. — Do  not  live  near  a 
pious  fool. — If  you  wish  to  hang  yourself,  choose  a  big  tree. 
— Rather  eat  onions  and  sit  in  the  shadow,  and  do  not  eat 
geese  and  poultry  if  it  makes  thy  heart  uneasy  within  thee. — 
A  small  stater  (coin)  in  a  large  jar  makes  a  big  noise. — A 
myrtle,  even  in  a  desert,  remains  a  myrtle. — When  the  pitcher 
falls  upon  the  stone,  woe  unto  the  pitcher;  when  the  stone 
falls  upon  the  pitcher,  woe  unto  the  pitcher:  whatever  befalls, 
woe  unto  the  pitcher. — Even  if  the  bull  have  his  head  deep  in 
his  trough,  hasten  upon  the  roof,  and  drag  the  ladder  after 
you. — Get  your  living  by  skinning  carcases  in  the  street,  if 
you  cannot  otherwise,  and  do  not  say,  I  am  a  priest,  I  am  a 
great  man ;  this  work  would  not  befit  my  dignity. — Youth  is 
a  garland  of  roses,  age  is  a  crown  of  thorns. — Use  a  noble 
vase  even  for  one  day — lest  it  break  to-morrow. — The  last 
thief  is  hanged  first. — Teach  thy  tongue  to  say,  I  do  not  know. 
— The  heart  of  our  first  ancestors  was  as  large  as  the  largest 
gate  of  the  Temple,  that  of  the  later  ones  like  that  of  the  next 
large  one ;  ours  is  like  the  eye  of  a  needle.— Drink  not,  and 
you  will  not  sin. — Not  what  you  say  about  yourself,  but  what 
others  say. — Not  the  place  honors  the  man,  but  the  man  the 
place.— The  cat  and  the  rat  make  peace  over  a  carcase. — A 
dog  away  from  his  native  kennel  dares  not  bark  for  seven 
years. — He  who  walks  daily  over  his  estates  finds  a  little  coin 
each  time. — He  who  humiliates  himself  will  be  lifted  up;  he 
who  raises  himself  up  will  be  humiliated.  Whosoever  runs 
after  greatness,  greatness  runs  away  from  him  ;  he  who  runs 
from  greatness,  greatness  follows  him. — He  who  curbs  his 
wrath,  his  sins  will  be  forgiven. — Whosoever  does  not  perse- 
cute them  that  persecute  him,  whosoever  takes  an  offence  in 

/ 


84  THE    TALMUD 

silence,  he  who  does  good  because  of  love,  he  who  is  cheerful 
under  his  sufferings — they  are  the  friends  of  God,  and  of 
them  the  Scripture  says,  And  they  shall  shine  forth  as  does 
the  sun  at  noonday. — Pride  is  like  idolatry.  Commit  a  sin 
twice,  and  you  will  think  it  perfectly  allowable.— When  the 
end  of  a  man  is  come,  everybody  lords  it  over  him. — While 
our  love  was  strong,  we  lay  on  the  edge  of  a  sword ;  now  it  is 
no  longer  strong,  a  sixty-yard-wide  bed  is  too  narrow  for  us. 
— A  Galilean  said  :  When  the  shepherd  is  angry  with  his  flock, 
he  appoints  to  it  a  blind  bell-wether. — The  day  is  short  and 
the  work  is  great;  but  the  laborers  are  idle,  though  the  reward 
be  great,  and  the  master  of  the  work  presses.  It  is  not  in- 
cumbent upon  thee  to  complete  the  work  :  but  thou  must  not 
therefore  cease  from  it.  If  thou  hast  worked  much,  great 
shall  be  thy  reward:  for  the  master  who  employed  thee  is 
faithful  in  his  payment.  But  know  that  the  true  reward  is 
not  of  this  world."   .... 

Solemnly,  as  a  warning  and  as  a  comfort,  this 
adage  strikes  on  our  ear: — "And  it  is  not  incum- 
bent upon  thee  to  complete  the  work."  .  When  the 
Masters  of  the  Law  entered  and  left  the  academy 
they  used  to  offer  up  a  short  but  fervent  prayer, 
in  which  we  would  fain  join  at  this  moment — a 
prayer  of  thanks  that  they  had  been  able  to  carry 
out  their  task  thus  far ;  and  a  prayer  further  "that 
no  evil  might  arise  at  their  hands,  that  they  might 
not  have  fallen  into  error,  that  they  might  not  de- 
clare pure  that  which  was  impure,  impure  that 
which  was  pure,  and  that  their  words  might  be 
pleasing  and  acceptable  to  God  and  to  their  fellow- 
men." 


NOTES  OF  A  LECTURE  ON  THE 
TALMUD^ 

Mr.  Deutsch  began  his  lecture  by  speaking  of 
the  various  and  contradictory  ideas  people  had 
about  the  Talmud  :  some  believing  it  to  be  almost 
divine :  others  that  it  was  nothing  but  folly  and 
childishness.  Those  who  investigated  the  book 
were,  he  said,  like  those  explorers  sent  by  Moses 
into  the  Promised  Land,  the  majority  of  whom 
returned  with  tales  of  iron  walls  and  monstrous 
giants,  while  a  few  came  back  carrying  a  huge 
bunch  of  delicious  grapes.  Many  were  the  strik- 
ing and  poetical  similes  suggested  by  that  strange 
work,  such  as  an  ocean,  or  a  buried  city  ;  but  speak- 
ing of  it  strictly  as  a  book,  the  nearest  approach  to 
it  was  Hansard.  Like  Hansard,  it  is  a  law-book:  a 
miscellaneous  collection  of  Parliamentary  debates, 
of  bills,  motions,  and  resolutions ;  with  this  differ- 
ence that  in  Hansard  these  propositions,  bills,  and 
motions,  gradually  grow  into  an  Act :  while  in  the 
Talmud  the  Act  is  the  starting-point,  and  the  de- 
bates its  consequence.  The  disquisitions  in  the 
Talmud  seek  to  evolve  the  reasons  for  the  Act  out 
of  Scripture,  of  which  itself  is  a  development  and 
an  outgrowth  ;  while  at  the  same  time,  supplemen- 
tary paragraphs  are  constantly  drawn  out  of  its 

^  Delivered  on  Friday  evening,  May  15,  1868,  at  the  Royal 
Institution  of  Great  Britain,  Albemarle  Street. 

(85) 


86  THE    TALMUD 

own  legal  text.  These  bills  or  Acts  are  called  the 
Mishnali,  both  collectively  and  individually  ;  the 
discussions,  Gemara;  both  together,  Talmud. 

The  Talmud,  however,  contains  a  vast  deal  more 
than  Hansard :  it  is  not  confined  to  strictly  legal 
matters.  All  those  manifold  assemblies  wherein  a 
people's  mental,  social,  and  religious  life  are  con- 
sidered and  developed,  are  here  represented.  Par- 
liament, Convocation,  Law-Courts,  Academies, 
Colleges,  the  Temple  and  the  Synagogue — even  the 
Lobby  and  the  Common  Room  have  left  realistic 
traces  upon  it.  The  authors  of  this  book,  who  may 
be  counted  by  hundreds,  were  always  the  most 
prominent  men  of  the  people  in  their  respective 
generations  ;  and  thus  undesignedly  and  designedly 
show  the  fulness  and  the  various  phases  of  this 
people's  life  and  progress  at  every  turn. 

The  Talmud,  in  this  wise,  contains  besides  the 
social,  criminal,  international,  human  and  divine 
Law,  along  with  abundant  explanations  of  Laws 
not  perfectly  comprehended,  corollaries  and  infer- 
ences from  the  Law,  that  were  handed  down  with 
more  or  less  religious  reverence,  an  account  also 
of  the  education,  the  arts,  the  science,  the  history, 
and  religion  of  this  people  for  about  a  thousand 
years  :  most  fully  perhaps  of  the  time  immediately 
preceding  and  following  the  birth  of  Christianity 
It  shows  us  the  teeming  streets  of  Jerusalem,  the 
tradesman  at  his  work,  the  women  in  their  domes- 
tic circle,  even  the  children  at  play  in  the  market- 
place. The  Priest  and  the  Levite  ministering  in 
their  holy  sites,  the  preacher  on  the  hillside  sur- 


THE    TALMUD  8/ 

rounded  by  the  multitude,  even  the  story-teller  in 
the  bazaar  :  they  all  live,  move  and  have  their  being 
in  these  pages.  Nor  is  it  Jerusalem  or  even  the 
hallowed  soil  of  Judaea  alone,  but  the  whole  antique 
world  that  seems  to  lie  embalmed  in  it ;  we  find 
here  the  most  curious  notices  of  the  religion  of 
Zoroaster — how  it  gradually  was  restored  to  its 
original  status  ;  as  if  all  things  which  had  dropped 
out  of  the  records  of  antique  humanity  had  taken 
refuge  in  the  Talmud. 

Athens  and  Alexandria,  Persia  and  Rome,  their 
civilizations  and  religions  old  and  new  are  repre- 
sented at  every  turn.  That  cosmopolitanism  which 
for  good  or  evil  has  ever  been  the  characteristic 
trait  of  the  Jewish  people,  and  which  was,  in  fact, 
the  highest  type  of  teaching,  is  most  vividly  repre- 
sented in  this  book.  One  of  the  most  striking  his- 
torical points  is  their  always  coming  in  contact, 
generally  against  their  will,  with  the  most  promi- 
nent nations,  exactly  at  the  moment  when  the  lat- 
ter seem  to  have  reached  the  highest  point  of 
culture  in  their  own  development.  Passing  over 
the  three  different  stages  of  the  people  as  Hebrews, 
Israelites,  Jews — names  which  have  a  distinct  sig- 
nificance— we  find  them  connected  with  Chaldea, 
Egypt,  Phoenicia,"  Assyria,  Babylonia,  Persia, 
Greece,  Rome,  Arabia.  Yet  that  cosmopolitanism 
never  for  one  moment  interfered  with  the  most 
marked  mental  individuality.  There  always  re- 
mained the  one  central  sun,  the  Bible :  around  this 
ever  revolved  that  great  Cosmos,  the  Talmud — 
wild  and  vague,  though  it  may  be — and  from  it,  as 
shown  in  the  Gcviara,  the  Mislmah  is  begotten. 


88  THE    TALMUD 

The  Talmud  has  been  harshly  dealt  with,  more 
owing  to  the  blunders  of  friends  than  of  foes. 
Some  people  have  supposed  that  whatever  any 
Jew  wrote  was  a  Talmud :  others  have  spoken  of 
it  as  a  revelation,  and  claimed  inspiration  for  it. 
The  fact  is,  that  what  each  of  these  men  wrote  was 
purely  his  own  :  and  no  one  of  them  would  have 
claimed  more  for  them  than  that  they  were  his  own 
utterances.  And  it  was  only  because  some  of  the 
laws  or  injunctions  in  it  were  attributed  to  Moses 
on  Mount  Sinai,  that  any  sort  of  divinity  was  pre- 
dicated of  it. 

As  to  its  "  dates,"  nothing  can  be  more  authentic 
than  the  memory  of  the  East.  The  Talmud  has 
been  preserved  with  absolute  authenticity  in  the 
memory  of  doctors  and  disciples,  in  the  same  way 
as  many  Brahmins  and  Parsee  priests  can  repeat, 
without  the  variation  of  a  single  accent,  entire 
Vedas  and  other  chapters  of  their  sacred  books, 
although  without  the  slightest  conception  of  their 
contents,  and  wholly  ignorant  of  their  meaning. 
The  same  was  true  of  the  followers  of  Zoroaster. 
At  the  same  time,  there  is  no  doubt,  that  much 
was  written  down  by  way  of  note  by  scribes,  who 
yet  did  not  venture  upon  the  work  of  redaction. 
What  alterations  there  are  in  the  Talmud  are  owing 
to  censors  who  changed  passages  that  were  sup- 
posed to  clash  with  Christianity,  and  produced  the 
most  singular  obscurities.  The  censor's  work  was 
fruitless,  for  in  reality  there  was  nothing  in  the 
genuine  Talmud  to  be  taken  out. 

But  indeed  we  have,  apart  from  the  clearest  and 


THE    TALMUD  89 

most  irrefutable  evidences  of  witnesses,  all  the 
ordinary  internal  evidences  of  history.  We  have 
an  array  of  carefully  preserved  historical  names 
and  dates  from  beginning  to  end  ;  names  and  dates, 
the  general  faithfulness  and  truth  of  which  have 
never  yet  been  called  into  question.  From  the  Great 
Synagogue  down  to  the  final  completion  of  the 
Babylonian  Gemara,  we  have  the  legal  and  philoso- 
phical development  of  the  nation  always  embodied 
as  it  were  in  the  successive  principal  schools  and 
men  of  their  times.  Its  chief  importance  for  reli- 
gious history  is  the  manner  in  which  it  informs  us 
of  things  and  circumstances  at  the  time  of  the 
birth  of  Christianity,  among  the  Priests  and  Phari- 
sees, of  the  education,  synagogues,  preaching,  of 
women,  of  angels  and  demons,  etc.  It  gives  us 
the  ethical  sayings,  the  parables,  gnomes,  etc., 
which  were  the  principal  vehicle  of  the  common 
Jewish  teaching  from  an  almost  pre-historic  period. 
These  sayings  were  often  tender,  poetical,  sublime  : 
but  they  were  not  absolutely  new:  there  was  not 
one  that  was  not  substantially  contained  in  the 
canonical  and  uncanonical  writings  of  the  Old 
Testament. 

Here  also,  we  find  the  first  cry  of  separation  be- 
tween Church  and  State :  the  first  antagonism  or 
contest  of  ceremonialism  and  free  investigation. 
The  Priests  were  the  representatives  of  a  privileged 
class,  and,  it  must  always  be  remembered,  of  one 
family.  The  first  revolt  against  this  system  we 
have  in  the  story  of  Korah.  It  was  doubtless  good 
for  the  Jews  at  that  time,  and  for  centuries  after 


9d  THE    TALMUD 

that  revolt  was  quelled  :  they  could  scarcely  have 
got  on  without  the  Sacrifices,  Temple,  and  all  its 
concomitants ;  but  after  the  Babylonian  captivity, 
when  idolatry  had  died  out,  learning  became  of 
higher  moment.  The  Priests  had  sadly  deterio- 
rated as  a  body,  with  some  bright  exceptions,  since 
the  days  of  the  Maccabees,  when  they  by  an  acci- 
dent suddenly  found  themselves  in  political  power. 
From  being,  as  Moses  intended  them  to  be,  the 
receivers  of  the  people's  free  gifts,  their  messen- 
gers— not  mediators — and. their  teachers,  they  had 
become,  chiefly  in  the  upper  strata,  an  encroach- 
ing and  ignorant  faction.  The  ordinary  priests 
had  mostly  sunk  into  mere  local  functionaries  of 
the  Temple,  while  many  of  the  High  Priests,  who 
in  their  later  days  bought  their  sacred  office  from 
the  ruling  foreign  power,  had  forgotten  the  very 
elements  of  that  Bible  which  they  had  been  espe- 
cially appointed  to  teach.  But  a  strong  re-action 
set  in.  The  Pharisees,  in  view  of  the  clouds  that 
they  saw  gathering  round  the  Commonwealth,  had 
but  one  cry — Education  :  catholic,  compulsory  and 
gratuitous.  The  watchwords  resounding  from  one 
end  of  the  Talmud  to  the  other  are  the  words, 
"learn — teach;  teach — learn."  The  Priesthood, 
the  Sacrifices,  the  Temple,  as  they  all  went  down 
at  one  sudden  blow,  seemed  scarcely  to  leave  a  gap 
in  the  religious  life  of  the  nation.  The  Pharisees 
had  long  before  undermined  these  things,  or  rather 
transplanted  them  into  the  people's  homes  and 
heart.  Every  man  in  Israel,  they  said,  is  a  priest, 
every  man's  house  a  temple,  every  man's  table  ^n 


THE    TALMUn  9I 

altar,  every  man's  prayer  his  sacrifice.  Long  be- 
fore the  Temple  fell,  it  had  been  virtually  super- 
seded by  hundreds  of  synagogues,  schools,  and 
colleges,  where  laymen  read  and  expounded  the 
Law  and  the  Prophets.  The  Priest  as  such,  or  the 
Levite,  played  but  a  very  insignificant  part  in  the 
synagogue  and  school.  The  function  of  pronounc- 
ing the  "  Benediction  "  on  certain  occasions,  and 
a  kind  of  vague  "precedence"  was  all  that  the 
synagogue  had  preserved  of  the  former  high  estate 
of  the  sons  of  Aaron,  Yet  on  the  other  hand, 
many  of  these  men,  having  lost  their  former  privi- 
leges, applied  themselves  all  the  more  vigorously 
to  study,  and  to  the  great  national  work  of  Educa- 
tion. Nor  was  there  any  real  personal  antagonism 
between  the  "pharisaical"  or  "popular"  party, 
and  the  descendants  of  the  "sacred"  tribe  and 
family.  There  is  on  the  contrary  a  legend,  one  of 
the  most  cherished  of  all  the  legends  (as  usual 
faithfully  interpreting  the  people's  real  feeling), 
which  tells  how,  when  the  enemy  entered  the  Holy 
of  Holies,  the  Priests  and  Levites,  led  by  the  vener- 
able High  Priest  himself,  bearing  aloft  the  golden 
key  of  the  sanctuary,  were  seen  ascending  to  the 
highest  summit,  and  then  precipitating  themselves, 
with  all  the  tokens  and  emblems  of  their  sacred 
trust,  into  the  blazing  ruins  of  the  Temple — rather 
than  deliver  them  up  to  the  conquerors  ! 

Strenuously  and  indefatigably,  we  have  said,  the 
Pharisees  advocated  education  ;  and  by  their  un- 
ceasing efforts,  hundreds  of  synagogues,  colleges, 
and  schools  arose,  not  only  in  Judaea,  but  through- 


92  THE    TALMUD 

out  the  whole  Roman  Empire.  Over  Judaea,  after 
many  unsuccessful  attempts,  education  was  made 
compulsory  everywhere  except  in  Galilee.  Peculiar 
circumstances  arising  out  of  its  geographical  posi- 
tion behind  Samaria  and  Phoenicia,  had  reduced 
that  beautiful  country  to  be  the  Boeotia  of  Pales- 
tine. The  faulty  pronunciation  of  its  inhabitants 
was  the  standing  joke  of  the  witty  denizens  of  the 
metropolis.  After  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  however, 
this  was  altered  ;  and  Galilee  became  in  her  turn 
the  seat  of  some  of  the  most  exalted  Academies. 
The  regulations  and  provisions  for  public  in- 
struction were  extremely  strict  and  minute.  The 
number  of  children  allotted  to  one  teacher,  the 
school  buildings  and  their  sites,  the  road  even  that 
led  to  them,  everything  was  considered  ;  no  less 
the  age  of  the  pupils  and  the  duties  of  the  parents 
with  regard  to  preliminary  preparation  and  contin- 
uous domestic  supervision  of  their  tasks.  The 
subjects,  the  method,  the  gradual  weaning  even  of 
the  pupil  into  a  teacher  or  helpmate  of  his  fellow- 
pupils — all  these  things  are  carefully  exposed  in 
the  Talmud.  Above  all  is  the  great  principle  Non 
multa  sed  mtiltum,  the  motto  of  all  schooling  in 
the  Talmud.  Good  fundamental  grounding,  ele- 
mentary maternal  teaching,  and  constant  repetition 
are  some  of  the  chief  principles  laid  down.  The 
teachers,  in  most  cases,  taught  gratuitously :  con- 
sidering theirs  a  holy  and  godly  office,  for  which 
the  reward  would  surely  not  fail  them.  The  rela- 
tion between  master  and  disciple  was  generally 
that   of    father  and   child,  or  friend  and  friend. 


THE   TALMUD  93 

Next  to  Law,  Ethics,  History,  and  Grammar — 
Languages  were  one  of  the  principal  subjects  of 
study.  We  hear  of  Coptic,  Aramaic,  Persian,  Me- 
dian, Latin,  but  above  all  Greek.  The  terms  in 
which  this  last  language  is  spoken  of  verge  indeed 
on  the  transcendental.  This  also  is  the  only  lan- 
guage which  it  seems  to  have  been  incumbent  to 
teach  even  to  girls.  Medicine  was  another  neces- 
sary subject  of  instruction  :  the  hygienic  laws  and 
the  anatomical  knowledge  (bound  up  with  religion) 
transmitted  to  us  in  the  book  show  indeed  no  small 
proficiency  for  its  time.  Mathematics  and  astron- 
omy formed  another  part  of  instruction,  and  were 
indeed  considered  indispensable.  We  hear  of  men 
to  whom  the  ways  of  the  stars  in  the  skies  were  as 
familiar  as  the  streets  of  their  native  city,  and 
others  who  could  compute  the  number  of  drops  in 
the  ocean,  who  foretold  the  appearance  of  comets, 
etc.  Next  came  Natural  History,  chiefly  Botany 
and  Zoology.  The  highest  point,  however,  was 
reached  in  Jurisprudence,  which  formed  the  most 
extensive  and  thoroughly  national  study. 

The  chief  aim  and  end  of  all  learning — the  Tal- 
mud is  never  tired  of  repeating — is  doing.  All 
knowledge  is  but  a  step  to  "  modesty  and  the  fear 
of  heaven ; "  and  innumerable  are  the  parables 
whereby  this  lesson  is  inculcated.  After  briefly 
adverting  to  Prayers  and  Sermons  and  the  whole 
worship  of  Temple  and  Synagogue  at  the  time  of 
Christ,  the  speaker  turned  to  the  "political"  por- 
tions of  the  "  Law  "  under  consideration,  and  hav- 
ing pointed  out  how  almost  the  modern  theory  of 


94  THE    TALMUD 

constitutionalism  was  contained  in  it,  briefly  touclied 
upon  the  relationship  between  Royalty,  State,  and 
subjects  and  the  provisions  for  taxes,  for  war,  the 
legislative  and  judicial  powers,  etc.  Both  this,  the 
legal,  and  the  other,  the  ethical  part  of  the  book — 
so  closely  intertwined  that  they  can  hardly  be  sep- 
arated— may  be  said  to  grow  out  chiefly  of  one 
fundamental  axiom  of  the  Talmud,  viz.,  the  utter 
and  absolute  equality  of  all  men  and  the  obligation 
to  "follow  God,"  by  imitating  the  mercy  attributed 
to  Him  by  Scripture.  No  book  can  possibly  point 
out  in  stronger  language  than  the  Talmud  does, 
the  extreme  sinfulness  of  sin. 

Next  the  speaker  alluded  to  the  holy  influence 
exercised  by  the  women,  of  whom  the  Talmud  not 
only  records  the  noblest  deeds,  but  whom,  even  as 
the  angels  themselves,  it  makes  at  times  the  bear- 
ers of  most  sublime  thoughts.  Regarding  the 
latter,  it  was  shown  at  some  length  how  both 
they  and  their  counterparts  "the  demons  "  were — 
though  partly  adopted  from  Persian  or  rather 
Zoroastrian  metaphysics — made  the  vehicles  of  na- 
tional Jewish  doctrines.  Indeed,  all  those  panthe- 
istic and  dualistic  principles  which  the  people  had 
gathered  from  the  creed  of  other  nations,  were 
transformed  under  the  skilful  hand  of  the  Talmud- 
ical  masters  into  strictly  monotheistic  elements, 
by  being  either  idealized  into  abstract  notions  of 
right  and  wrong,  or  surrounded  by  a  poetical  halo 
which  deprived  them  of  any  real  existence.  Thus 
Satan  (Sammael,  the  "Primeval  Serpent"),  though 
mythologically  his  functions  are  precisely  similar 


THE    TALMUD  95 

to  those  of  the  Persian  "Evil  Spirit,"  i.e.,  those  of 
Seducer,  Accuser,  and  Angel  of  Death,  is  yet  ex- 
plained away  philosophically  as  meaning  merely 
"Passion,"  which  seduces,  produces  remorse,  and 
kills.  The  demons  are  said  to  have  masks  before 
their  faces,  which  fall  only  when  the  sin  is  commit- 
ted ;  it  is  then  only  that,  as  bitter  self-reproaches, 
they  surround  the  sinner  on  all  sides.  Another 
instance  of  this  is  the  legend  of  Isaac,  in  which 
"Satan,"  as  the  Angel  of  Death,  appears  first  as 
an  accuser  of  Abraham  (as  of  Job)  before  God, 
next  as  a  seducer  to  Abraham  in  the  garb  of  an 
old  man,  to  Isaac  in  that  of  a  youth,  finally  to 
Sarah,  informing  her  of  the  danger  in  which  her 
son  had  been  placed.  There  is  also  the  legend  of 
the  death  of  Moses,  in  which  Satan,  eager  to  van- 
quish the  "divine  man,"  is  thwarted  by  God's 
Name  even  to  the  end. 

In  the  same  manner  Asmodeus  (the  Persian 
Aeshma),  "  Lilith,"  and  the  rest  of  the  demoniacal 
powers,  as  well  as  those  allegorical  monsters,  the 
"Leviathans,"  the  "Cocks,"  the  "Bulls,"  and  the 
rest  of  the  ever-repeated  reproaches  to  the  Talmud, 
have  to  play  their  instructive  part.  All  these  are 
taken  almost  bodily  from  the  Zendavesta,  which  in 
itself  represents  more  or  less  a  protest  against  the 
Vedic  faith.  They  are  either  reduced  into  their 
original  meanings  in  the  Talmud,  or  they  are 
ridiculed  and  made  to  inculcate  some  moral  lesson. 
On  the  other  hand  the  famous  "  Sea  Fairy  Tales," 
taken  from  Vedic  sources,  are  made  into  guises  of 
political,  if  not  religious  satires.     When  the  Per- 


96  THE    TALMUD 

sians  broke  off  from  the  Indians,  the  good  gods  of 
the  old  system  became  the  bad  gods  of  the  new, 
and  vice  vers  A. 

After  dwclHng  on  the  causes  of  the  obscurity  of 
some  of  the  matters  found  in  the  Talmud  and  their 
apparent  want  of  dignity — occasioned  partly  by  the 
circumstances  and  the  manners  of  the  period,  and 
partly  by  the  neglect  of  copyists,  and  the  undying 
fanaticism  which  ever  tried  to  "improve"  this  im- 
portant record  of  humanity — the  speaker  instanced 
the  various  modes  in  which  the  Talmudical  authors 
figured  to  themselves  the  Messianic  times,  and  the 
utter  and  absolute  freedom  with  which  they  ex- 
pressed their  opinion  on  this  as  on  every  other 
religious  topic.  Every  sermon,  every  discourse 
that  treated  of  holy  things  ended  with  the  one 
comprehensive  formula  "And  may  to  Sion  come 
the  Redeemer  !  "  The  opinions  of  the  modes  and 
objects  of  his  coming  are  many  and  various ;  the 
Talmud  records  them  all  equally,  faithfully,  and 
without  comment,  save  that  to  him  who  says  the 
Messiah  is  no  longer  to  be  expected,  it  adds,  "  May 
God  forgive  him  !" 

Further  remarks  on  the  value  of  the  Talmud  as 
a  "  human  study  "  in  our  days,  and  the  scientific 
manner  in  which  it  should  be  treated,  followed.  It 
required,  the  speaker  said,  a  certain  system  and 
method  entirely  of  its  own,  being  itself  in  almost 
every  respect  an  exceptional  work.  Above  all, 
however,  the  investigator  should  not  only  be  armed 
with  patience  and  perseverance  such  as  is  scarcely 
needed  for  any  other  branch  of  study,  but  he  must 


THE   TALMUD  97 

leave  all  and  every  prejudice,  religious  and  other- 
wise, behind  him.  Then,  and  then  only,  might  he 
hope  to  gather  in  it  some  of  the  richest  and  most 
precious  fruits  of  human  thought  and  fancy. 

The  legend  of  Elijah  standing  on  the  mountains 
of  Judaea  three  days  before  the  appearance  of  the 
Messiah,  proclaiming  peace  and  redemption  to  all 
mankind,  followed  by  the  legendary  vision  of  the 
final  consummation  of  all  things,  and  of  the  aboli- 
tion of  Heil  and  Death, — one  of  the  grandest 
legends  ever  conceived, — formed  the  conclusion  of 
the  discourse. 


A  LECTURE  ON  THE  TALMUD^ 

Dr.  Emanuel  Deutsch  explained  that  the  Tal- 
mud is  the  work  which  embodies  the  civil  and 
canonical  law  of  the  Jewish  people  ;  that  it  consists 
of  the  MisJmaJiy  or  text,  and  the  commentary,  or 
Gemara ;  that  its  contents  have  reference  not 
merely  to  religion,  but  also  to  philosophy,  medicine, 
history,  jurisprudence,  and  the  various  branches  of 
practical  duty ;  that  it  is,  in  fact,  a  law  civil  and 
criminal,  national  and  international,  human  and 
divine,  forming  a  kind  of  supplement  to  the  Penta- 
teuch— a  supplement  such  as  it  took  looo  years  of 
a  nation's  life  to  produce;  and  that  it  is  not  merely 
a  dull  treatise,  but  it  appeals  to  the  imagination  and 
the  feelings,  and  to  all  that  is  noblest  and  purest ; 
that  between  the  rugged  boulders  of  the  law  which 
bestrew  the  pass  of  the  Talmud  there  grow  the  blue 
flowers  of  romance  and  poetry,  in  the  most  catholic 
and  Eastern  sense.  Parable,  tale,  gnome,  saga — 
its  elements  are  taken  from  heaven  and  earth  ;  but 
chiefly  and  most  lovingly  from  the  human  heart 
and  from  Scripture,  for  every  verse  and  every  word 
in  this  latter  became,  as  it  were,  a  golden  nail  upon 
which  it  hung  its  gorgeous  tapestries.  But  it  would 
be  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  poet's  cun- 
ning had  been  at  work  in  the  Talmud.     It  was  only 

^Delivered   December  7,   1868,  at  the  Midland  Institute, 
Birmingham. 

(98) 


THE    TALMUD  99 

his  heart.  The  chief  feature  and  charm  of  its  con- 
tents lay  in  their  utter  naivete.  Taken  up,  as  they 
appeared,  at  random,  and  told  in  their  simple,  in- 
artistic, unconscious  form,  they  touched  the  soul. 
But  nothing  could  be  much  more  distressing  than 
to  attempt  to  take  them  out  of  their  antique  garb 
and  press  them  into  some  kind  of  modern  fashion- 
able dress ;  or  worse  still,  to  systematize  and 
methodize  them.  It  would  be  as  well  to  attempt  to 
systematize  the  songs  of  the  bird  in  the  wood,  or  a 
mother's  parting  blessing.  He  had,  however,  to 
endeavor  to  reproduce  a  portion  of  the  contents  of 
the  Talmud,  in  their  own  vague  sequence  and 
phraseology  ;  and  he  should  confine  himself  almost 
to  smaller  productions,  as  parables,  apophthegms, 
allegories,  and  the  like  minute  things,  which  were 
most  characteristic,  and  required  little  explanation. 
The  fundamental  law  of  all  human  and  social 
economy  in  the  Talmud  was  the  utter  and  absolute 
equality  of  man.  It  was  pointed  out  that  man  was 
created  alone — not  more  than  one  at  different  times, 
lest  one  should  say  to  another,  "  I  am  of  the  better 
or  earlier  stock."  And  it  failed  not  to  mention 
that  man  was  created  on  the  last  day,  and  that  even 
the  gnat  was  of  more  ancient  lineage  than  man.  In 
a  discussion  which  arose  among  the  doctors  as  to 
which  was  the  most  important  passage  in  the  whole 
Bible,  one  pointed  to  the  verse,  "  And  thou  shalt 
love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself."  The  other  contra- 
dicted him  and  pointed  to  the  words,  "  And  these 
are  the  generations  of  man  " — not  black,  not  white, 
not  great,  not  small — but  man. 


100  THE    TALMUD 

Or,  again,  they  pointed  out  the  words,  "  And 
these  are  the  ordinances  by  which  men  shall  live  " 
— not  the  priest,  or  the  Levite — but  men.  The  law 
given  on  Mount  Sinai,  the  masters  said,  though  em- 
phatically addressed  to  one  people,  belonged  to  all 
humanity.  It  was  not  given  in  any  King's  land, 
not  in  any  city,  or  inhabited  spot,  lest  the  other 
nations  might  say,  "We  know  nothing  of  it."  It 
was  given  on  God's  own  highway,  in  the  desert — 
not  in  the  darkness  and  stillness  of  night,  but  in 
plain  day,  amid  thunder  and  lightning.  And  why 
was  it  given  on  Sinai  .-*  Because  it  is  the  lowliest 
and  the  meekest  of  the  mountains — to  show  that 
God's  spirit  rests  only  upon  them  that  are  meek  and 
lowly  in  their  hearts.  The  Talmud  taught  that 
religion  was  not  a  thing  of  creed  or  dogma  or  faith 
merely,  but  of  active  goodness.  Scripture  said, 
"Ye  shall  walk  in  the  words  of  the  Lord."  "But 
the  Lord  is  a  consuming  fire — how  can  man  walk  in 
His  way  .'' "  "  By  being,"  they  answered,  "as  He 
is — merciful,  loving,  long  suffering.  Mark  how  on 
the  first  page  of  the  Pentateuch  God  clothed  the 
naked — Adam  ;  and  on  the  last  He  buries  the  dead 
— Moses.  He  heals  the  sick,  frees  the  captives, 
does  good  to  His  enemies,  and  He  is  merciful  both 
to  the  living  and  to  the  dead." 

In  close  connection  with  this  stood  the  relation- 
ship of  men  to  their  neighbors — chiefly  to  those 
beyond  the  pale  of  creed  or  nationality.  The  Tal- 
mud distinctly  and  strongly  set  its  face  against 
proselytism,  pronouncing  it  to  be  even  dangerous 
to  the  commonwealth.     There  was  no  occasion,  it 


THE    TALMUD  lOI 

said,  for  conversion  to  Judaism,  as  long  as  a  man 
fulfilled  the  seven  fundamental  laws.  Every  man 
who  did  so  was  regarded  as  a  believer  to  all  intents 
and  purposes.  It  even  went  so  far  as  to  call  every 
righteous  man  an  Israelite.  Distinct  injunctions 
were  laid  down  with  regard  to  proselytes.  They 
were  to  be  discouraged  and  warned  off,  and  told 
that  the  miseries,  privations,  and  persecutions 
which  they  wished  to  take  upon  themselves  were 
unnecessary,  inasmuch  as  all  men  were  God's  chil- 
dren, and  might  inherit  the  hereafter  ;  but  if  they 
persisted,  they  were  to  be  received,  and  were  to 
be  ever  afterwards  treated  tenderly.  They  illus- 
trated this  by  a  beautiful  parable  of  a  deer  coming 
from  the  forest  among  a  flock  of  sheep,  and  being- 
driven  off  at  night  and  the  gate  shut  against  it,  but 
being,  after  many  trials,  at  length  received  and 
treated  with  more  tenderness  than  any  of  the 
sheep.  Next  stood  reverence  both  for  age  and 
youth.  They  pointed  out  that  not  merely  the 
tables  of  the  law  which  Moses  brought  down  the 
second  time  from  Sinai,  but  also  those  which 
he  broke  in  his  rage,  were  carefully  placed  in 
God's  tabernacle,  though  useless.  Reverence  old 
age.  But  all  their  most  transcendental  love  was 
lavished  on  children.  All  the  verses  of  Scripture 
that  spoke  of  flowers  and  gardens  were  applied 
to  children  and  schools.  "  Do  not  touch  mine 
anointed  ones,  and  do  my  prophets  no  harm." 
"Mine  anointed  ones"  were  school  children,  and 
"my  prophets"  their  teachers. 

The  highest  and  most  exalted  title  which  they 


102  THE    TALMUD 

bestowed  in  their  most  poetical  flights  upon  God 
himself  was  that  of  "  Pedagogue  of  Man  "  There 
was  drought  and  the  most  pious  men  prayed  and 
wept  for  rain,  but  none  came.  An  insignificant- 
looking  person  at  length  prayed  to  Him  who  caused 
the  wind  to  blow  and  the  rain  to  fall,  and  instantly 
the  heavens  covered  themselves  with  clouds,  and 
the  rain  fell.  "Who  are  you,"  they  cried,  "  whose 
prayers  alone  have  prevailed .-'  "  And  he  answered, 
"lam  a  teacher  of  little  children."  When  God 
intended  to  give  the  law  to  the  people.  He  asked 
them  whom  they  would  offer  as  their  guarantees 
that  they  would  keep  it  holy,  and  they  said  Abra- 
ham. God  said,  "  Abraham  has  sinned — Isaac, 
Jacob,  Moses  himself — they  have  all  sinned;  I  can- 
not accept  them."  Then  they  said  "  May  our  chil- 
dren be  our  witnesses  and  our  guarantees."  "  And 
God  accepted  them;  even  as  it  is  written  'From 
the  mouths  of  the  wee  babes  has  He  founded  His 
empire.'"  Indeed  the  relationship  of  man  to  God 
they  could  not  express  more  pregnantly  than  by 
the  most  familiar  words  which  occurred  from  one 
end  of  the  Talmud  to  the  other,  "  Our  Father  in 
Heaven." 

Another  simile  was  that  of  bride  and  bride- 
groom. There  was  once  a  man  who  betrothed 
himself  to  a  beautiful  maiden,  and  then  went  away, 
and  the  maiden  waited  and  waited  and  he  came 
not.  Friends  and  rivals  mocked  her,  and  said  "  He 
will  never  come."  She  went  into  her  room,  and 
took  out  the  letters  in  which  he  had  promised  to 
be  ever  faithful.     Weeping  she  read  them  and  was 


THE    TALMUD  IO3 

comforted.  In  time  he  returned,  and  enquiring 
how  she  had  kept  her  faith  so  long,  she  showed  him 
his  letters.  Israel  in  misery,  in  captivity,  was 
mocked  by  the  nations  for  her  hopes  of  redemp- 
tion ;  but  Israel  went  into  her  schools  and  syna- 
gogues and  took  out  the  letters,  and  was  comforted. 
God  would  in  time  redeem  her,  and  say,  "  How 
could  you  alone  among  all  the  mocking  nations  be 
faithful  ?  "  Then  Israel  would  point  to  the  law  and 
answer,  "  Had  I  not  your  promise  here .''  " 

Next  to  women,  angels  were  the  most  frequent 
bearers  of  some  of  the  sublimest  and  most  ideal 
notions  in  the  Talmud.  "  Underneath  the  wings 
of  the  seraphim,"  said  the  Talmud,  "are  stretched 
the  arms  of  the  Divine  mercy,  ever  ready  to  re- 
ceive sinners."  Every  word  that  emanated  from 
God  was  transformed  into  an  angel,  and  every  good 
deed  of  man  became  a  guardian  angel  to  him.  On 
Friday  night,  when  the  Jew  left  the  synagogue,  a 
good  angel  and  a  bad  angel  accompanied  him.  If, 
on  entering  the  house,  he  found  the  table  spread, 
the  lamp  lighted,  and  his  wife  and  children  in  fes- 
tive garments,  ready  to  bless  the  holy  day  of  rest, 
the  good  angel  said,  "  May  the  next  Sabbath  and 
all  following  ones  be  like  unto  this  ;  peace  unto 
this  dwelling — peace  !  "  and  the  bad  angel,  against 
his  will,  was  compelled  to  say  "  Amen."  If,  on 
the  contrary,  everything  was  in  confusion,  the  bad 
angel  rejoiced,  and  said  "  May  all  your  Sabbaths  and 
week-days  be  like  this ; "  while  the  good  angel 
wept  and  said  "Amen."  According  to  the  Tal- 
mud, when   God  was  about  to  create  man,  great 


104  THE    TALMUD 

clamoring  arose  among  the  heavenly  host.  Some 
said,  "  Create,  O  God,  a  being  who  shall  praise 
Thee  on  earth,  even  as  we  sing  Thy  glory  in 
heaven."  Others  said,  "O  God,  create  no  more! 
Man  will  destroy  the  glorious  harmony  which  Thou 
hast  set  on  earth  as  in  heaven."  Of  a  sudden,  God 
turned  to  the  contesting  host  of  heaven,  and  deep 
silence  fell  upon  them  all.  Then  before  the  throne 
of  glory  there  appeared,  bending  the  knee,  the 
Angel  of  Mercy,  and  he  prayed,  "  O  Father,  create 
man.  He  will  be  thine  own  noble  image  on  earth. 
I  will  fill  his  heart  with  heavenly  pity  and  sympa- 
thy towards  all  creatures ;  they  will  praise  Thee 
through  him."  And  there  appeared  the  Angel  of 
Peace,  and  wept  :  "  O  God,  man  will  disturb  Thine 
own  peace.  Blood  will  flow ;  he  will  invent  war, 
confusion,  horror.  Thy  place  will  be  no  longer  in 
the  midst  of  all  Thy  earthly  works."  The  Angel 
of  Justice  cried,  "You  will  judge  him,  God  !  He 
shall  be  subject  to  my  law,  and  peace  shall  again 
find  a  dwelling-place  on  earth."  The  Angel  of 
Truth  said,  "  Father  of  Truth,  cease  !  With  man 
you  create  the  lie."  Out  of  the  deep  silence  then 
was  heard  the  divine  word  :  "  You  shall  go  with 
him — you,  mine  own  Seal,  Truth ;  but  you  shall 
also  remain  a  denizen  of  heaven — between  heaven 
and  earth  you  shall  float,  an  everlasting  link  be- 
tween both." 

The  question  was  asked  in  the  Talmud,  why 
children  were  born  with  their  hands  clenched,  and 
men  died  with  their  hands  wide  open  ;  and  the 
answer  was  that  on   entering  the  world,  man  de- 


THE   TALMUD  IO5 

sired  to  grasp  everything,  but  when  he  was  leaving 
it  all  slipped  away.  Even  as  a  fox,  which  saw  a 
fine  vineyard,  and  lusted  after  its  grapes,  but  was 
too  fat  to  get  in  through  the  only  opening  there 
was,  until  he  had  fasted  three  days.  He  then  got 
in  ;  but  having  fed,  he  could  not  get  out,  until  he 
had  fasted  three  days  more.  "Poor  and  naked, 
man  enters  the  world ;  poor  and  naked  does  he 
leave."  To  woman  the  Talmud  ascribed  all  the 
blessings  of  the  household.  From  her  emanated 
everything  noble,  wise,  and  true.  It  had  not  words 
enough  to  impress  man  with  the  absolute  neces- 
sity of  getting  married.  Not  only  was  he  said  to 
be  bereaved  of  peace,  joy,  comfort,  and  faith  with- 
out a  wife,  but  he  was  not  even  called  a  man. 
"Who  is  best  taught.''"  it  asked  ;  and  the  answer 
is,  "  He  who  has  learned  first  from  his  mother." 

Alexander  the  Great  was  repeatedly  spoken  of  in 
the  Talmud.  In  his  travels  in  the  East,  one  day 
he  wandered  to  the  gate  of  Paradise,  and  knocked. 
The  guardian  angel  asked,  "  Who  is  there  ? " 
"Alexander."  "  Who  is  Alexander  ?  "  "  Alexan- 
der, you  know — ^/le  Alexander — Alexander  the 
Great — Conqueror  of  the  world."  "  We  know  him 
not — he  cannot  enter  here.  This  is  the  Lord's  gate ; 
only  the  righteous  enter  here."  Alexander  begged 
something  to  show  he  had  been  there,  and  a  small 
portion  of  a  skull  was  given  him.  He  took  it  away, 
and  showed  it  contemptuously  to  his  wise  men,  who 
brought  a  pair  of  scales  and  placing  the  bone  in  one, 
Alexander  put  some  of  his  silver  and  gold  against 
it  in  the  other ;  but  the  silver  and  gold  "kicked  the 


I06  THE    TALMUD 

beam."  More  and  more  silver  and  gold  were  put 
into  the  scale  and  at  last  all  his  Crown  jewels  and 
diadems  were  in,  but  they  all  flew  upwards  like 
feathers  before  the  weight  of  the  bone.  Then  one 
of  the  wise  men  took  a  grain  of  dust  from  the 
ground  and  placing  it  on  the  bone,  the  scale  went 
up.  The  bone  was  that  which  surrounded  the  eye, 
— and  nothing  will  ever  satisfy  the  eye,  until  grains 
of  dust  and  ashes  are  placed  upon  it,  down  in  the 
grave. 

In  his  travels  Alexander  came  to  Ethiopia,  and  a 
cause  was  decided  in  his  presence  by  the  king  of 
that  country.  A  man  who  had  recently  purchased 
land  found  a  treasure  upon  it,  which  was  claimed 
by  the  seller  of  the  land.  The  king  reconciled  the 
rival  claims  by  suggesting  that  the  son  of  one  of 
the  men  should  marry  the  daughter  of  the  other, 
and  that  the  treasure  should  be  given  as  the  dowry. 
Alexander  was  moody,  and  the  King  of  Ethiopia 
asked,  "Are  you  dissatisfied  with  my  judgment?" 
"Well,"  Alexander  said,  "I  am  not  dissatisfied; 
I  only  know  we  should  have  judged  differently  in 
our  country."  "How.''"  "We  should  of  course 
have  taken  the  treasure  at  once  into  the  King's 
exchequer,  and  both  those  men  would  have  been 
beheaded  on  the  spot."  The  King  of  Ethiopia 
said,  "  Allow  me  to  ask  a  question.  Does  the  sun 
ever  shine  in  your  country  ?  "  "  Of  course."  "  And 
does  it  ever  rain  .'' "  "  Certainly."  "  Have  you  any 
cattle  ."^  "  "Yes."  "Then  that  is  the  reason  why 
the  sun  shines,  and  the  rain  rains — it  can't  be  for 
you." 


THE    TALMUD  10/ 

The  lecturer  concluded  by  remarking  that  what 
he  had  been  able  to  bring  before  the  audience 
proved  as  it  were  but  a  drop  in  a  vast  ocean  of  the 
Talmud — that  strange,  wild,  weird  ocean,  with  its 
leviathans,  and  its  wrecks  of  golden  argosies,  and 
with  its  forlorn  bells  that  send  up  their  dreamy- 
sounds  ever  and  anon,  while  the  fisherman  bends 
upon  his  oar,  and  starts  and  listens,  and  perchance 
the  tears  may  come  into  his  eyes. 


PUBLICATIONS 

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Jewish  Publication  Society 

OF  AMERICA. 


OUTLINES  OF  JEWISH  HISTORY.    From  the  Return  from  Babylon  to 

the  Present  Time.     By  Lady  Magnus.     (Revised  by  M.  Friedlander.) 
THINK  AND  THANK.    By  Samuel  W.  Cooper. 
RABBI  AND  PRIEST.    By  Milton  Goldsmith. 
THE  PERSECUTION  OF  THE  JEWS  IN  RUSSIA. 
VOEGELE'S  MARRIAGE  AND  OTHER  TALES.    By  Louis  Schnabel. 
CHILDREN  OF  THE  GHETTO  :  BEING  PICTURES  OF  A  PECULIAR 

PEOPLE.    By  I.  Zangwill. 
SOME  JEWISH  WOMEN.    By  Henry  Zimdorf. 
HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS.    By  Prof.  H.  Graetz. 

Vol.  I.      From  the  Earliest  Period  to  the  Death  of  Simon  the  Mac- 
cabee  (135  B.  C.  E.). 

Vol.  II.     From  the  Reign  of  Hyrcanus  to  the  Completion  of  the 
Babylonian  Talmud  (500  C.  E.). 

Vol.  III.    From  the  Completion  of  the  Babylonian  Talmud  to  the 
Expulsion  of  the  Jews  from  England  (1290  C.  E.). 

Vol.  IV.   From  the  Rise  of  the  Kabbala  (1270  C.  E.)  to  the  Permanent 
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Vol.  V.     In  preparation. 
SABBATH  HOURS.    Thoughts.    By  Liebman  Adler. 
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OLD  EUROPE .4N  JEWRIES.    By  David  Philipson,  D.D. 
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OUTLINES  OF  JEWISH  HISTORY. 

From  the  Return  from  Babylon  to  the  Present  Time, 
1890. 

With  Three  Maps,  a  Frontispiece  and  Chronological  Table*. 

By  lady  MAGNUS. 

Revised  ey  M.  FKIEDLANDER,  Ph.  D. 


OPINIONS    OF   THE    PRESS. 

The  entire  work  is  one  of  great  interest ;  it  is  written  with  moderation, 
and  yet  with  a  fine  enthusiasm  for  the  great  race  which  is  set  before  the 
reader's  mind  — Atlantic  Monthly. 

We  doubt  whether  there  is  in  the  English  language  a  better  sketch  of 
Jewish  liistory.  The  Jewish  Publication  Society  is  to  be  congratulated 
on  the  successful  opening  of  its  career.  Such  a  movement,  so  auspi- 
ciously begun,  deserves  the  hearty  support  of  the  public— Aa^ion  (New 
York)." 

Of  universal  historical  iaterest— Philadelphia  Ledger. 

Compresses  much  iu  simple  language. — Baltimore  Sun, 

Though  full  of  sympathy  for  her  own  people,  it  is  not  without  a  sin- 
gular value  for  readers  whose  religious  belief  differs  from  that  of  the 
author.— A'cw  Vork  Time.--. 

One  of  the  clearest  and  most  compact  works  of  its  class  produced  in 
modern  times. — Xeiu  Vork  Sun. 

The  Jewish  Publication  Society  of  America  has  not  only  conferred  a 
favor  upon  all  young  Hebrews,  but  also  upon  all  Gentiles  who  desire  to 
eee  the  Jew  as  he  appears  to  himself. — Boston  Herald. 

We  know  of  no  single-vohime  history  which  gives  a  better  idea  of  the 
remarkable  part  played  by  the  Jews  in  ancient  and  modern  history. — 
San  Francinco  Clironicle. 

A  succinct,  well-written  history  of  a  wonderful  ra.ce.— Buffalo  Courier. 

The  best  hand-book  of  Jewish  history  that  readers  of  any  class  can 
find. — New  York  Heridd. 

A  convenient  and  attractive  hand-book  of  Jewish  'history .—Clevdand 
Plain  JJtukr. 

The  work  is  an  admirable  one,  and  as  a  manual  of  Jewish  history  it 
may  be  commended  to  persons  of  every  race  and  creed. — Philadelphia 
Tidies. 

Altogether  it  would  be  difficiilt  to  find  another  book  en  this  subject 
containing  so  much  information. — American  (Phihidelphia). 

I.ady  Magnus'  book  is  a  vahiable  addition  to  the  store-houf^e  of  litera- 
ture lliat  we  already  have  about  the  Jews. — Charleston  {S.  C)  News. 

We  should  like  to  see  this  volume  in  tlie  library  of  every  school  in  the 
State. — Albany  Anjus. 

A  succinct,  helpful  portrayal  of  Jewish  history.— Bostow  Post. 


Bound  in  Cloth.        Price,  postpaid,  $1.00,  Library  Edition. 
75  cents,  School  Edition. 


•THINK  AND  THANK." 

A  Tale  for  the  Young,  Narrating  in  Romantic  Form  the 
Boyhood  of  Sir  Moses  Montefiore. 

WITH    SIX    ILI^USTRATIONS. 

By  SAMUEL  W.  COOPER. 


OPINIONS  OFTHE  PRESS. 

A.  graphic  and  interesting  story,  full  of  incident  and  adventure,  with 
an  admirable  spirit  attendiug  it  consonant  with  the  kindly  and  sweet, 
tliough  courageous  and  energetic  temper  of  the  distinguished  philan- 
thropist.— American  (Pliiladelphia). 

THINK  AND  THANK  is  a  most  useful  corrective  to  race  pr  jndice.  It 
is  also  deepy  iiiteresiing  as  a  biographical  sketch  of  a  distinguished. 
Englishman. — Pliiladelphia  Ledger. 

A  fine  book  for  boysof  any  class  to  rea.A.— Public  Opt?n'ow (Washington). 

It  will  have  especial  interest  for  Ihe  boys  of  his  race,  but  all  school- 
boys can  well  aflbid  to  read  il  and  profit  by  it. — Albany  Evening  Journal. 

Told  simply  and  well.— A^ew  York  Sun. 

An  excellent  story  for  children. — Indianapolis  Journal. 

The  old  as  well  as  the  young  may  learn  a  lesson    from  ii.—JewUh 

Exponent. 

It  is  a  thrilling  story  exceedingly  well  told.— American  Israe'itc. 

The  book  is  written  In  a  plain,  simple  style,  and  is  well  adapted  fcr 
Sunday-school  libraries.— JtWi'i/i  Spectator. 

It  is  one  of  the  very  few  books  in  the  English  language  which  can  be 
placed  in  the  hands  of  a  Jewi'*!!  boy  with  the  assurance  of  arousing  and 
maintaining  his  interest. — Hebrew  Journal. 

Intended  for  the  young,  but  may  well  be  read  by  their  elders.— Z»c<roi< 
Free  Press. 

Bright  and  attractive  reading. — Philadelphia  Press. 

THINK  AND  THANK  will  please  boys,  and  it  will  be  found  popular 
in  Sunday-school  libraries. — Sew  Voik  Herald. 

The  story  is  a  beautiful  one,  and  gives  a  clear  insight  into  the  circum- 
stances, the  training  luid  the  motives  that  gave  im pi: Ise  and  energy  lo 
the  life-work  of  the  great  philanthropist. — Kansas  City  Times. 

■(Ve  should  be  glad  to  know  that  this  little  book  has  a  large  circulation 
among  Gentiles  as  well  as  among  the  "  chosen  people."  It  has  no  trace 
of  religious  bigotry  about  it,  and  its  perusal  cannot  but  serve  to  make 
Christian  and  Jew  better  known  to  each  other.— Philadelphia  Telegraph. 


Bound  in  Cloth.  Price,  postpaid,  50c. 


RABBI  AND  PRIEST, 

A  STORY. 

BY  MILTON  GOLDSMITH. 


OPINIONS  OF  TH  E    PRESS. 

The  author  has  attempted  to  depict  faithfully  the  customs  and  i^rac- 
tices  of  the  Kussian  people  and  government  in  connection  with  the 
Jewish  population  of  that  country.  The  hook  is  a  strong  and  well  writ- 
ten story.  We  read  aud  suffer  with  the  sufferers. — Public  Opinion 
(Washington). 

Although  addressed  to  Jews,  with  an  appeal  to  them  to  seek  free- 
dom and  peace  in  America,  it  ought  to  be  read  by  humane  people  of  all 
races  and  religions.  Mr.  Goldsmith  is  a  master  of  English,  and  his 
pure  style  is  one  of  the  real  pleasures  of  the  story. — Philadelphia  BitUe- 
tin. 

The  book  has  the  merit  of  being  well  written,  is  highly  entertaining, 
and  it  cannot  fail  to  prove  of  interest  to  all  who  may  want  to  acquaint 
themselves  inthe  matter  of  the  condition  of  affairs  that  has  recently 
been  attracting  universal  attention. — San  Francisco  Call. 

Rabbi  and  Priest  has  genuine  worth,  and  is  entitled  to  a  rank 
among  the  foremost  of  its  class. — Minneapolis  Tribune. 

The  writer  tells  his  story  from  the  Jewish  standpoint,  and  tells  it 
•well. — St.  Louis  Hepublic. 

The  descriptions  of  life  In  Russia  are  vivid  and  add  greatly  to  the 
charm  of  the  hook.—Buffo£o  Courier. 

A  very  thrilling  story. — Charleston  (S.  C.)  News. 

Very  like  the  horrid  tales  that  come  from  unhappy  Russia.— iVew 
Orleans  Picayune. 

The  situations  are  dramatic  ;  the  dialogue  is  spirited. — Jewish  Mes- 
senger. 

A  historj'  of  passing  events  in  an  interesting  form.— Jewish  Tidings, 

Rabbi  and  Priest  will  appeal  to  the  sympathy  of  every  reader  in  its 
toucbing  simplicity  and  truthfulneob. — Jewish  Spectator. 


Bound  in  Cloth.  Price.  Post-paid,  $1. 


GHILDHEfl  OF  THE  GHETTO 

BEING 

PICTURES  OF  a  FECULIflR  FEOFLE. 


BY  I.  ZANGWItL. 


The  art  of  a  Hogarth  or  a  Cruikshank  could  not  have  made  types  of 
character  stand  out  with  greater  force  or  in  bolder  relief  than  has  the 
pen  of  this  aviihov.— Philadelphia  Record. 

It  is  one  of  the  best  pictures  of  Jewish  life  and  thought  that  we  have 
seen  since  the  publication  of  "Daniel  Deronda."— London  Pall  Mall 
Oazette. 

This  book  is  not  a  mere  mechanical  photographic  reproduction  of  the 
people  it  describes,  but  a  glowing,  vivid  portrayal  of  them,  with  all  the 
pulsating  sympathy  of  one  who  understands  them,  their  thoughts  and 
feelings,  with  all  the  picturesque  fidelity  of  the  artist  who  appreciates 
the  spiritual  significance  of  that  which  he  seeks  to  delineate. — Hebrew 
Journal. 

Its  sketches  of  character  have  the  highest  value.  .  .  .  Not  often 
do  we  note  a  book  so  fresh,  true  and  in  every  way  helpful.— Philadelphia 
Evening  Tekgraph. 

A  strong  and  remarkable  book.  It  is  not  easy  to  find  a  parallel  to  it. 
We  do  not  know  of  any  other  novel  which  deals  so  fully  and  so  authori- 
tatively with  Judaea  in  modern  London. —Speaker,  London. 

Among  the  notable  productions  of  the  time.  .  .  .  All  that  is  here 
portrayed  is  unquestionable  truth. — Jewish  Exponent. 

Many  of  the  pictures  will  be  recognized  at  once  by  those  who  have 
visited  London  or  are  at  all  familiar  with  the  life  of  that  city. — Detroit 
Free  Prees. 

It  is  a  succession  of  sharply-penned  realistic  portrayals.— Bato'more 
American. 


TWO  VOLUMES. 
Bound  in  Cloth.  Price,  postpaid,  $2.50. 


SOME  JEWISH  WOMEN, 


HENRY  ZIRNDORF. 


OPINIONS   OF   THE   PRESS: 

Moral  purity,  nobility  of  soul,  self-sacrifice,  deep  affectioti  anddevotion, 
Borrow  a ud  h"appine!^s  all  enter  into  these  bif)graphies,  and  the  interest 
felt  in  their  perutal  is  added  to  by  the  warmth  and  sympathy  which  the 
author  displays  and  by  his  cultured  and  vigorous  style  of  writing. — 
Philadelphia  Record. 

His  methods  are  at  once  a  simplification  and  expansion  of  Josephusand 
the  Talm  ud  .stories  simply  told ,  faithful  presentation  of  the  virtues,  and  not 
infrequentiy  the  vices,  "of  characters  sometimes  legendary,  generally 
real.— Aew  York  World. 

Thelivos  here  g:iven  are  interesting  in  all  oases,  and  are  thrilling  in 
some  cases. — I'uhUc  Opinion  (Washington,  D.  C). 

The  volume  is  one  of  universal  historic  interest,  and  is  a  portrayal  of 
the  early  trials  of  Jewish  women. — Boston  Ikrald. 

Though  the  chapters  are  brief,  they  arc  clearly  the  result  of  deep  and 
thorough  research  that  gives  the  modest  volume  an  historical  and  critical 
value. — Philadclplda  Times. 

It  is  an  altogether  creditable  undertaking  that  the  present  author  has 
brought  to  so  giatifying  a  close— the  silhouette  drawing  of  Biblical 
female  character  against  the  bacJjground  of  those  ancient  historic  times. 
— Miuneupolis  Tribune. 

Henry  Zirndorf  ranks  high  as  a  student,  thinker  and  writer,  and  this 
little  bonk  will  go  far  to  encourage  the  study  of  Hebrew  literature. — 
Denver  Republican. 

The  book  is  gracefully  written,  and  has  many  strong  touches  of  char- 
acterizations.—Tbfedo  Blade. 

The  sketches  are  based  upon  available  history  and  are  written  in  clear 
narrative  aiyle.— Galveston  Is'cws. 

Henry  Zirndorf  has  done  a  piece  of  work  of  much  literary  excellence 
in  "  Some  Jewish  Women."— 6^  Louis  Post- Dispatch. 

Itis  an  attractive  boolc  in  appearance  and  full  of  curious  biographical 
research.— i'aHtmc/'e  Han. 

The  writer  shows  careful  research  and  conscientiousness  in  making 
his  narratives  historically  correct  and  in  giving  to  each  heioiue  her  just 
due. — American  Israelite  (Cincinnati). 


Bound  in  Cioth,  Ornamental,  Gilt  Top.    Price,  postpaid,  $1.25. 


HISTOHY  OF  THE  JEWS. 

BY 

PROFESSOR  H.  GRAETZ. 


Vol.      I.    From  the  Earliest  Period  to  the  Death  of  Siiuon  the 

Maccabee  (135  B.  C.  E.). 
Vol.     II.    From  the  Keign  of  Hyrcaniis  to  the  Completion  of  the 

Babylonian  Talmuil  (500  C.  E.). 
Vol.  III.    From  lh«  Completion  of  the  Babylonian   Talmud   to 

tlm   ISanishment  of  the  Jews  Iroui   Eng^land  (1290 

C.  E.). 
Vol.  IV.    From  the  Rise  of  the  Kabbala  (1270  C.  E.)  to  the  Per- 

luaiit'nt  Settlement  of  the  Marranosin  UoUaud  (1618 

C.  E.). 
Vol.     V.     In  preparation. 

OPINIONS  OF  THE  PRESS. 

Professor  Graetz's  History  is  universally  accepted  as  a  conscientious 
and  reliable  contribution  to  religious  literature. — Philadelphia  Telegraph. 

Aside  from  his  value  as  a  historian,  he  makes  his  pages  charming  by 
all  the  little  side-lights  and  illustrations  which  only  come  at  the  beck 
of  genius. — Chicago  Inter-Ocean. 

The  writer,  who  is  considered  by  far  the  greatest  of  Jewish  historians, 
is  the  pioneer  in  his  field  of  work— history  without  theology  or  polemics. 

.  .  .  His  monumental  work  promises  to  be  the  standard  by  which 
all  other  Jewish  histories  are  to  be  measured  by  Jews  for  many  years  to 
come. — Baltimore  American. 

Whenever  the  subject  constrains  the  author  to  discuss  the  Christian 
religion,  he  is  animated  by  a  spirit  not  unworthy  of  the  philosophic  and 
high-minded  hero  of  Lessing's  "  Nathan  the  Wise." — Xew  York  San. 

It  is  an  exhaustive  and  scholarly  work,  for  which  the  student  of  his- 
tory has  leasou  to  be  devoutly  thankful.  .  .  .  It  will  be  welcomed 
also  for  the  writer's  excellent  style  and  for  the  almost  gossipy  way  in 
which  he  turns  aside  from  tlie  serious  narrative  to  illumine  his  pages 
with  ilhistrative  descriptions  of  life  and  scenery. — Detroit  Free  Prens. 

One  of  the  striking  features  of  the  compilation  is  its  succinctness  and 
rapidity  of  narrative,  while  at  the  same  time  necessary  detail  is  not 
sacrificed. — Minneapolis  Tribune. 

Whatever  controversies  the  work  may  awaken,  of  its  noble  scholarship 
there  can  be  no  question. — Ricfimond  Dispatch. 

If  one  desires  to  study  the  history  of  the  Jewish  people  under  the 
direction  of  a  scholar  and  pleasant  writer  who  is  in  sympathy  with  his 
subject  because  he  is  himself  a  Jew,  he  should  resort  to  the  volumes  of 
Graetz. — Review  of  Reviews  (New  York). 


Bound  in  Cloth.  Price,  postpaid,  $3  per  volume. 


SABBATH  HOURS, 

THOL/GHTS. 
By  LIEBMAN  ADLER. 


OPINIONS  OF  THE  PRESS. 

Rabbi  Adler  was  a  man  of  strong  and  fertile  mind,  and  his  sermons 
are  eminently  readable. — Simdat/  School  Times. 

As  one  turns  from  sermon  to  sermon,  he  gathers  a  wealth  of  precept, 
which,  if  he  would  practice,  he  would  make  both  himself  and  others 
happier.  We  might  quote  from  every  page  some  noble  utterance  or 
sweet  thought  well  worthy  of  the  cherishing  by  either  Jew  or  Christian. 
— Richmcmd  Dispatch. 

The  topics  discussed  are  in  the  most  instances  practical  in  their 
nature.  All  are  instructive,  and  passages  of  rare  eloquence  are  of  fre- 
quent occurrence. — San  Francisco  Call. 

The  sermons  are  simple  and  careful  studies,  sometimes  of  doctrine, 
but  more  often  of  teaching  and  precept. — Chicatjo  Times. 

He  combined  scholarly  attainment  with  practical  experience,  and 
these  sermons  cover  a  wide  range  of  subject.  Some  of  them  are  singu- 
larly modern  in  tone. — Indianapolis  News. 

They  are  modern  sermons,  dealing  with  the  problems  of  the  day,  and 
convey  the  interpretation  which  these  problems  should  receive  in  the 
light  of  the  Old  Testament  history. — Boston  Herald. 

While  this  book  is  not  without  interest  in  those  communities  where 
there  is  no  scarcity  of  religious  teaching  and  influence,  it  cannot  fail  to 
be  particularly  so  in  those  communities  where  there  is  but  little  Jewish 
teaching. — Baltirnore  American. 

The  sermons  are  thoughtful  and  earnest  in  tone  and  draw  many  forci- 
ble and  pertinent  lessons  from  the  Old  Testament  records. — Syracuse 
Herald. 

They  are  saturated  with  Bible  lore,  but  every  incident  taken  from  the 
Old  Testament  is  made  to  illustrate  some  truth  in  modern  life. — San 
Francisco  Chronicle. 

They  are  calm  and  conservative,  .  .  .  applicable  in  their  essential 
meaning  to  the  modern  religious  needs  of  Gentile  as  well  as  Jew.  In 
style  they  are  eminently  clear  and  direct.— Review  of  Reviews  (New  York). 

Able,  forcible,  helpful  thoughts  upon  themes  most  essential  to  the 
prosi)erity  of  the  family,  society  and  the  state.— Pu6/tc  Opinion  (Washing- 
ton, D.  C).  

Bound  in  Cloth.  Price,  postpaid,  $1.25. 


PAPERS 

OF  THE 
i 

Jewish  Women's  ConQtess 

HELD  AT  CHICAGO,  SEPTEMBER,  1893. 


OPINIONS  OF  THE  PRESS. 

This  meeting  was  held  during  the  first  week  of  September,  and  was 
marked  by  the  presentation  of  some  particularly  interesting  addresses 
and  plans.  This  volume  is  a  complete  report  of  the  sessions.— C/wca^o 
Times. 

The  collection  In  book  form  of  the  papers  read  at  the  Jewish  Women's 
Congress  .  .  .  makes  an  interesting  and  valuable  book  of  the  history 
and  afiiairs  of  the  Jewish  women  of  America  and  England. — St.  Louis 
Post- Dispatch. 

A  handsome  and  valuable  souvenir  of  an  event  of  great  significance 
to  the  people  of  the  Jewish  faith,  and  of  much  interest  and  value  to  in- 
telligent and  well-informed  people  of  all  faiths. — Kansas  City  Times. 

The  Congress  was  a  branch  of  the  parliament  of  religions  and  was  a 
great  success,  arousing  the  interest  of  Jews  and  Christians  alike,  and 
bringing  together  from  all  parts  of  the  country  women  interested  in 
their  religion,  following  similar  lines  of  work  and  sympathetic  in  ways 
of  thought.  .  .  .  The  papers  in  the  volume  are  all  of  interest.— 
Detroit  Free  Press. 

The  Jewish  Publication  Society  of  America  has  done  a  good  work  in 
gathering  up  and  issuing  in  a  well-printed  volume  the  "  Papers  of  the 
Jewish  Women's  Congress." — Cleveland  Plain- Dealer. 

Bound  in  Cloth.  Price,  Postpaid,  $1. 


OLD 
EUROPEAN   JEWRIES 

By  DAVID  PHILIPSON,  D.D. 


OPINIONS  OF  THE  PRESS 

A  good  purpose  is  served  in  this  unpretending  little  book,  .  .  .' 
which  contains  an  amount  and  kind  of  information  that  it  would  be 
difficult  to  find  elsewhere  without  great  labor.  The  author's  subject  is 
the  Ghetto,  or  Jewish  quarter  in  European  cities. — Lilerary  World 
(Bostou). 

It  is  interesting  ...  to  see  the  foundation  of  ...  so  much 
fiction  that  is  familiar  to  us— to  go,  as  the  author  here  has  gone  in  one 
of  his  trips  abroad,  into  the  remains  of  the  old  Jewries. — Baltimore  Su7i. 

His  book  is  a  careful  stiidy  limited  to  the  ofBcial  Ghetto.— Cincinnati 
Commercial-Gazette. 

Out-of-the-way  information,  grateful  to  the  delver  in  antiquities, 
forms  the  staple  of  a  work  on  the  historic  Ghettos  of  Europe. — Mil- 
waukee Sentinel. 

ne  tells  the  story  of  the  Ghettos  calmly,  sympathetically  and  con- 
scientiously, and  his  deductions  are  in  harmony  with  those  of  all  other 
intelligent  and  fair-minded  men. — Richmond  Dispatch. 

A  striking  study  of  tlie  results  of  a  system  that  has  left  its  mark  upon 
the  Jews  of  all  countries.— San  Francisco  Chronicle. 

He  has  carefully  gone  over  all  published  accounts  and  made  discrimi- 
nating use  of  the  publications,  both  recent  and  older,  on  his  subject,  in 
German,  French  and  English. — Reform  Advocate  (Chicago). 

Bound  in  Cloth  Price,  Postpaid,  $1.25 


Jewish  Literature  and  Otlier  Essays 

By  GUSTAV   KARPELES 


OPINIONS  OF  THE  PRESS 

The  author  shows  in  every  chapter  the  devoted  love  for  Judaism  which 
prompted  the  work,  and  which  gave  him  enthusiasm  and  patience  for 
the  thorough  research  and  study  eyinced.— Denver  Republican. 

A  splendid  and  eloquent  recital  of  the  glories  of  Jewrsh  religion, 
philosophy  and  song. — Philadelphia  Record. 

The  result  of  great  research  by  a  careful,  painstaking  scholsLT.— Albany 
Journal. 

The  reader  who  is  unacquainted  with  the  literary  life  of  the  highei 
circles  of  Jewish  society  will  have  his  eyes  opened  to  things  of  which, 
perhaps,  he  has  never  dreamed. — Sew  Orleans  Picayune. 

The  present  author  in  this  volume  gives  us  a  general  view  of  all 
Hebraic  writings  in  an  essay  called  "  A  Glance  at  Jewish  Literature." — 
Detroit  Free  Press. 

For  popular,  yet  scholarly  treatment,  and  the  varied  character  of  its 
themes,  Dr.  Gustav  Karpeles'  "Jewish  Literature  and  other  Essays"  is 
an  almost  ideal  volume  for  a  Jewish  Publication  Society  to  issue.— 
Jewish  Messenger  (New  York). 

All  of  the  essays  show  that  thorough  erudition,  clear  discernment  and 
criticism  for  which  their  author  is  noted. — Jewish  Exponent  (Phila- 
delphia). 


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SPECIAL  SERIES 


No.  1 .    The  Persecution  of  the  Jews  in  Russia 

With  a  Map 
Showing  the  Pale  of  Jewish  Settlement 

Also,  an  Appendix,  giving  an  Abridged  Summary  of  Laws, 

Special  and  Restrictive,  relating  to  the  Jews  in 

Russia,  brought  down  to  the  year  1890. 

Paper, Price,  postpaid,  25c. 


Ho.  2.    Voegele's  Marriage  and  Other  Tales 

By  LOUIS  SCHNABEL 

Paper, Price,  postpaid,  25c. 


No.  3.    THE  TALMUD 


REPRINTED  FROM  THE 

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